Norwegian NGO Plans $2.9M for Vietnam Bomb, Mine Clearance by 2014

The Norway People’s Aid (NPA), a non-governmental organization (NGO), will grant $2.9 million to a wartime bombs and mines clearance project in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Tri in the 2012-2014 period. Under the agreement signed on Nov 28 between the provincial People’s Committee and the NPA, the Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of the War (RENEW) Project will aim at minimizing deaths and injures caused by unexploded ordinances (UXO) in Quang Tri. Under the project, the NPA will help communal and district authorities in their strategic development targets with a focus on making plans and coordinating resources in bombs and mines clearance activities and improving capacity for local staff to settle UXOs sustainably. The project will be carried out in Trieu Phong, Cam Lo and Hai Lang districts and then will be expanded to the mountainous district of Dakrong. Set up in 1939, the Norwegian NGO with long-year experiences in the humanitarian bomb and mine field is operating in more than 30 nations with about 300 projects worldwide. The organization started operation in Vietnam in 2007 through financial and technical assistance to the RENEW project as a co-donor.  Bombs and mines have killed around 104,000 people across Vietnam since 1975 and it caused deaths to additional 300 to 600 people per annum, the UNDP said. Vietnam will need more than $10 billion to clear up bombs and mines in next 300 years, said a representative of the Technology Center for Bomb and Mine Disposal (BOMICEN). (vietnamplus.vn Nov 29, Tuoi Tre – Youth Nov 29 p4)