Washington -- With an estimated 60 million to 70 million landmines threatening nearly every part of the world, a cross-section of the international humanitarian demining community -- technical advisers, policymakers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and donor representatives -- gathered in Virginia's Blue Ridge mountains in early October acknowledging the need to work together to define measures of success.

Some 200 individuals from six continents took part in the four-day conference sponsored by James Madison University's Humanitarian Demining Information Center to tackle the subject of measures of effectiveness, or MOEs. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance James Schear pointed out that effective mine action is not only removing mines, but detecting and marking mine fields, establishing indigenous demining capabilities, carrying out mine awareness programs, aiding mine victims, and promoting research and development efforts to help eliminate mine threats.

"There is no lack of passion in the Department of Defense for this mission," Schear said, noting that by law U.S. military personnel cannot remove mines from the ground, but special operations forces train the trainers with the goal of establishing a cadre of self-reliant deminers in a host of different nations. Humanitarian demining is viewed as one of the most important priorities of the United States, Schear said, noting the accompanying residual benefits U.S. military forces attain by training. U.S. law also permits the Defense Department to transfer up to $5 million each year in non-lethal demining equipment to nations hosting American trainers.

While acknowledging that expectations for success "vary widely," Schear said MOEs need to focus on how well initial training is absorbed, how quickly a host nation moves into the sustainment phase, and how fast mine-polluted land can be returned to productive use. Ultimately, it involves trying "to train ourselves out of a job," said psychological operations officer Lieutenant Colonel Paul Mullin.

Donald "Pat" Patierno, director of the State Department's Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs (OHDP), said the United States is committed "to promoting national and regional security, political stability and economic development worldwide by reducing civilian landmine casualties through mine awareness, mine clearance training, and development and deployment of demining technology." The notion, he said, is to create "indigenous, sustainable humanitarian demining capabilities that will continue after direct U.S. involvement is complete."

As soon as is practical, the host nation is expected to create a Mine Action Center (MAC), which Patierno said should be able to clarify national demining policies, establish reporting mechanisms, record and update mine threat information, enforce demining safety standards, "and provide quality assurance measures to evaluate the effectiveness of demining tasks." He pointed to the Cambodian Mine Action Center, which is credited with cutting mine casualties in half, as well as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan, as two examples of effective MACs.

Wherever possible, the U.S. tries to tap into existing organizations and infrastructures in host nations. "In our effort to help these nations build their own demining capabilities," Patierno said, "we must tailor the program to the recipient nation, not the nation to the program. We must resist the temptation to force all programs down the same path."

To this end, Congress has given the State Department flexibility to use Non-Proliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Other Related (NADR) appropriations in new ways to fund innovative partnerships with international organizations, NGOs, and private contractors. One of the newer programs involves a $1 million grant to the United Nations Development Program to help clear mines from the Massingir Dam area in Mozambique. Another new project will be carried out through the joint collaboration of PeaceTrees Vietnam and James Madison University to develop a culturally-sensitive mine awareness curriculum for Quang Tri Province with a U.S. grant of nearly $140,000.

The United States is also contributing almost $350,000 to CARE to conduct UN Level One (general) and Level Two (technical) surveys of embedded landmines in Somalia and to provide local mine awareness training. Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California is a recipient of a nearly $40,000 contract to study the nature of the landmine problem in Georgia and the regional implications of humanitarian demining in the Southern Caucasus.

To receive NADR funds, Patierno said the U.S. insists that an applicant seeking or receiving money must have the host nation's endorsement and U.S. embassy support. The project should also help develop "the host nation's ability to conduct or manage demining activities."

In addition to Cambodia, Afghanistan (UNOCHA), Somalia, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Georgia, the U.S. is supporting demining programs in Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Chad, Eritrea, Laos, Namibia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia, Lebanon, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, and Yemen; as well as Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Costa Rica through the Organization of American States and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB); and Angola through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Priscilla Clapp, Deputy Special Representative for Global Humanitarian Demining, told conference participants that a framework of standards for demining cannot be imposed, but must be embraced through international coordination. She also pointed to a number of innovative programs including the "Adopt a Minefield" program sponsored by the United Nations Association of the United States as well as the Marshall Legacy Institute's mine-sniffing dog program, which is now working with the Humane Society of the United States. The private sector represents "a great resource that needs to be tapped," she emphasized.

Only one year ago, Clapp noted that the demining community was gearing up for the Ottawa negotiations. Now that the 40th country has ratified the convention that bans the use, stockpile, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines and covers APL destruction, "We have come a long way," she said. With the treaty officially taking effect in March 1999, there are "about 10 years to clean up" the landmine mess, the official noted.

Bob Lawson, senior policy adviser for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, said the Canadian-sponsored Ottawa Convention and the U.S.-sponsored Global Humanitarian Demining 2010 Initiative to remove all mines that threaten civilians in the coming decade through an effective international campaign "are complementary." He agrees with the Clinton administration position that the human crises spawned by mines can be solved "in years not decades."

He conceded, however, that the March 1999 deadline won't eliminate the landmine problem completely, but underlined the fact that this is an evolving process which requires benchmarks and norms for behavior. Reports from Kosovo, for example, indicate new APL problems. Even as some participants flew to the James Madison University conference, there was a fresh report that an International Committee of the Red Cross vehicle had hit a mine in Kosovo killing an ethnic Albanian physician and injuring a New Zealander and another Kosovar Albanian.

The scope of the mine problem is illustrated by the good and bad news about Bosnia delivered by Dave Armitt, technical advisor with the Bosnia and Herzegovina Mine Action Centre. He noted that there has been "a noticeable decrease" in the number of reported mine incidents in the past two years." At the same time, only 9.3 square kilometers have been cleared since January 1996; 2,100 kilometers remain.

Murphey McCloy, senior adviser with the State Department's Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs, says the department "strongly supports the international demining community's efforts" to focus on measures of demining program effectiveness. OHDP measures quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative measure focuses on hard data such as numbers of deminers and teams in place; the types and numbers of APL and unexploded ordnance destroyed; and the amount of hectares of ground cleared, or number of facilities or infrastructures such as hospitals, ports or electrical power plants returned to safe use.

The second measure examines socioeconomic indicators such as declining mine incidents resulting in deaths or injuries, quality life improvements, and the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to areas prepared for resettlement. As he pointed out, if demining isn't accomplished, the land is uninhabitable.

McCloy says overall program effectiveness is determined by "the cumulative impact of the various quantitative and qualitative measures." The end-run measure, he said, is the host nation's ability to plan, coordinate, and execute its own demining program with an indigenous force capable of demining to international humanitarian standards. He also said in the rare instances when that goal is not possible, "We adjust our aspirations and assistance, accordingly."

The experts try to avoid fostering "a cycle of dependency," McCloy said. In the end, U.S. trainers want to ensure that individual nations have been given the capacity to undo what has been done with landmines.

Throughout the October 4-7 conference, speakers stressed that reducing mine risks means more than pulling them out of the ground. It also involves assessing and addressing the medical, social, and economic needs of victims. As Catherine Savino of the U.S. Agency for International Development noted on a panel about victim assistance: "reintegration" is key.

Humanitarian demining also means funding innovations to do the job better. U.S. Army Colonel George Zahaczewsky said the issue is not so much building better clearance equipment, which is being done, but figuring out how to make it affordable and providing it to the end-user.

Sean Burke, deputy program manager for demining at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, concurred with Zahaczewsky's assessment saying equipment must be easy to use and inexpensive. He previewed a binary aerosol foam explosive which would be useful in terrain where it is impossible to send heavy mine clearing equipment.

What is the next step for the demining community? The UN will review and expand demining standards in 1999. James Madison University hopes to play a role in that process from Harrisonburg, Virginia.

There is also a growing awareness that international funding for demining will not last forever and, consequently, a desire to accelerate clearance rates. This sparks the debate -- as yet unresolved -- as to whether land should be cleared verifiably to a standard of 100 percent, as is now done, or, as former British Army expert Alstair Craib has suggested, to a lesser amount, perhaps to 95 percent.