Abstract
A Resource Planning Tool for Humanitarian Demining and Mine Action
Track: Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Affairs
Author(s): Daniel Eriksson
Demining is only a small part of the efforts to address the impact of the explosive remnants of war. The term used to summarise all activities is ‘Mine Action’. This includes activities like surveys, clearance, and awareness-raising. In most conflicts contaminated areas are not properly documented and the exact boundaries of suspected hazardous areas are often unknown. Mine action is applied to increase knowledge of the hazard and, secondly, to reduce the impact.
This paper elaborates on the challenges that were faced during the development of a standardised information system currently used in close to 50 countries. The tool is based on a combination of open source elements and proprietary software, like Esri ArcEngine. It is a process-oriented spatial information system that has more in common with enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools in the commercial world than the spatially-oriented solutions that are more common in the international humanitarian community.
Daniel Eriksson
GICHD
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Geneva , GE 1211
Switzerland
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E-mail: d.eriksson@gichd.org