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Making analytical tools operational: taskimpact assessmentBelinda Goslin aa Belinda Goslin is at the Cranfield Mine Action Unit, CranfieldUniversity, Shrivenham, Swindon SN6 8LA, UK. Email:B.Goslin@rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk.Published online: 03 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Belinda Goslin (2003) Making analytical tools operational: task impactassessment, Third World Quarterly, 24:5, 923-938, DOI: 10.1080/0143659032000132939

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ISSN 0143-6597 print/ISSN 1360-2241 online/03/050923-16 � 2003 Third World QuarterlyDOI: 10.1080/0143659032000132939 923

Third World Quarterly, Vol 24, No 5, pp 923–938, 2003

In the five years since the signing of the Mine Ban Treaty in December 1997,1

significant developments have taken place towards defining and quantifying thelandmine problem to enable progress under the treaty to be assessed. It has beenwidely acknowledged, however, that mine action implementers are operating inan environment of limited resources, and that it is currently unrealistic to expectthat all mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO)2 in the world will be identified andcleared within the 10-year period stipulated in the Mine Ban Treaty.3

Limited resources mean that it is necessary to improve the effectiveness andefficiency of mine action operations. The mine action sector previously focusedon improving the cost efficiency of operations in order to allow more areas to becleared with allocated funds. However, efficiency does not ensure effectiveness.An efficient clearance rate and an area free from mines that is of no benefit toidentified target groups does not achieve the objectives of mine action.

Making analytical tools operational:task impact assessment

BELINDA GOSLIN

ABSTRACT In a world of limited resources there is an increasing need for mineaction operators to demonstrate the impact of interventions on affected popula-tions. To date several tools have been developed for assessing impact within mineaction. This article suggests that these tools largely focus on the negative impactthat landmines and unexploded ordnance have on affected populations, ratherthan on the positive impact of humanitarian mine action itself. While existingtools are extremely useful at the macro level for national planning and resourceallocation, they do less to provide the criteria required for task selection at theimplementation level. Task impact assessment (TIA) is proposed as a suitable toolfor filling this ‘gap’. The article compares the methodologies of TIA and otherexisting approaches, and suggests that TIA is a cost-effective and complementarytool that facilitates the selection of specific tasks at the operational level withinbroader areas identified as high priority at the strategic level. The paper suggeststhat TIA, as developed and used by one mine action operator (Norwegian People’sAid), is relevant for other operators and could provide a standardised tool toassist all mine action organisations within a given country to select their tasks.Similarly, it argues that, with minor modifications, TIA could be used by nationalmine action authorities which may wish to more accurately assess the value ofconducting certain tasks before others without incurring unnecessary delays orcosts in the process.

Belinda Goslin is at the Cranfield Mine Action Unit, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, Swindon SN6 8LA,UK. Email: B.Goslin@rmcs.cranfield.ac.uk.

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Improving efficiency involves streamlining and developing technical activities sothat as much mine action as possible can be carried out with available funds.Improving effectiveness means adopting appropriate measures to avoid poorprioritisation, ensuring that resources are utilised effectively and objectives aremet. We need to do both.

The need to shift from viewing the landmine problem in terms of numbers ofmines laid and square kilometres contaminated to concentrating on allocatingresources in ways that address the socioeconomic impact of mines on populationshas been widely acknowledged,4 and a number of tools and studies have beendeveloped to apply this thinking to mine action in the field. At present, however,these tools are mainly geared to assessing the negative impact of mines onaffected populations, primarily from a national perspective, and are less able toinform the procedures and actions of local-level mine action operators. Withoutthe application of impact-oriented thinking by mine action operators in the field,the full benefit of mine action cannot be achieved. The discrepancy between whatis discussed at conferences and head offices and what is actually done in the fieldis still significant, and needs to be addressed if mine action operations are to betruly effective.

This gap between the ‘talkers’ and the ‘doers’ is exacerbated by the scepticismstill encountered among those who feel that money spent on internationalconferences and the development of tools, standards, etc results in a drain ofresources for de-mining, which is the only permanent solution to eradicating thenegative impact of mine contamination. Studies and tools are needed to improvethe effectiveness of operations, but the populations of mine-affected communitiesusually require that de-mining continue regardless, and de-mining operators maynot be in a position to devote time or resources to implementing newly developedapproaches in the field. This does not decry the requirement to improve effective-ness and ensure that humanitarian mine action achieves maximum impact; itsimply highlights the need for a timely and cost-effective way of doing so at theoperational level.

Task impact assessment (TIA) is a tool that has been developed by NorwegianPeople’s Aid (NPA) in order to address this gap and apply impact-orientedthinking to NPA’s own mine action operations. This article will look at theprioritisation of mine action, the various levels at which it takes place and thestakeholders involved. It will then review other impact-assessment approachesand explain NPA’s TIA methodology in this context. The article aims to demon-strate the need for a tool such as TIA to bridge the gap between the outputs ofnational surveys and planning and the inputs required for the prioritisation ofmine action tasks at the operational level. It will also note the current limitationsof TIA and suggest how the tool could be developed for use in the wider mineaction environment. Illustrations of the application of TIA are drawn mostly fromthe author’s own experience of implementing TIA in the Croatian de-miningprogramme, but also from the experience of Sara Sekkenes of NPA, who designedthe tool for use in Angola, and from others within NPA programmes.

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Who prioritises?

Who prioritises mine action interventions and how this should be done has beenthe subject of much debate. Criteria for prioritisation vary from economic factorsthat will enhance development at the national level to individual social factors forhuman development at the micro level. There may be conflict between variousstakeholders, but prioritisation of mine action is often guided by criteria providedby a variety of stakeholders, from the global to the community level.

First, prioritisation is carried out at the global level through the allocation ofdonor resources to mine-affected countries. Donors are key stakeholders and—interms of beneficiary region or country, or thematic activity—may allocate fundson the basis of the objectives and policies of their own countries. Often, however,donor priorities will be influenced by the national priorities of beneficiarycountries, and resources will be allocated in accordance with national mine actionplans. In some instances donors may express preferences in terms of the type ofactivity they wish to fund or the geographical area or beneficiary group they wishto target, and these wishes can be and usually are accommodated by the nationalmine action authority (NMAA) or implementing organisation concerned.

The second level of prioritisation is at the national level within mine-affectedcountries. Responsibility for the prioritisation of mine action ultimately lieswithin the remit of the NMAA. The international community and affected countriesthemselves have spent significant time and resources developing nationalcapacities for mine action co-ordination, and there is currently some sort of bodyresponsible for the prioritisation and co-ordination of de-mining tasks in 40 of theworld’s 97 mine-affected countries.5 NMAAs are responsible for setting strategicobjectives for addressing the mine problem and for prioritising specificgeographical or thematic areas within which to work. For example, an NMAA maybe prioritising clearance of all ‘high impact’ communities identified by a nation-wide Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) or focusing on the rehabilitation of infra-structure to facilitate the post-conflict redevelopment of the wider economy.Usually, there will be a mixture of different goals, and the NMAA will often haveto respond to external economic and political pressures that the field operatorshould not have to address.

The third level of prioritisation occurs at the implementation level, usually bythe mine action operators themselves. This is where TIA has been used to date.Where there is a national prioritisation system in place, it is fair to say that mineaction organisations should work within this system if their belief in supportingnational capacity is genuine. However, this does not mean that a mine actionorganisation is required to take on every specific task issued by the NMAA. Oftenthe priorities of the organisation will not be the same as the priorities of nationalor even local governments, although the organisation should be able to workwithin the strategic framework provided by the NMAA. Mine action operators mayhave their own priorities and are often required to work within the frameworkof their own organisational objectives. For example, NPA identifies socially,economically and politically vulnerable and/or marginalised groups as its targetbeneficiaries. Consequently, the objective of NPA’s mine action activities is to‘facilitate, support and contribute to a sustainable improvement of socio-

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economic living conditions for the target populations in mine-affected areas’.6 InBosnia and Herzegovina, for example, this means supporting people of ethnicminorities returning to majority areas, as well as other vulnerable groups. InAngola it means assisting internally displaced persons and vulnerable rural andurban populations. By responding to national- or local-level requests fromauthorities and applying a second level of criteria to filter out unsuitable tasks,TIA enables the operator to work in accordance with national and/or localpriorities and meet its own organisational objectives.

The fourth level at which prioritisation occurs is within the mine-affectedcommunity. Affected populations, as the beneficiaries of mine action, arearguably the primary stakeholders, and as such should be fully consulted andexert considerable influence in setting priorities. In practice, however, theyare often the group with the least influence in this regard. Regardless of thesophisticated mechanisms in place for prioritisation, if local community needsare not sufficiently met (ie if land they need is not considered a high priority foraction), they will often resort to dealing with the problem themselves. De-miningby non-professionals is, of course, dangerous. Many mine incidents haveoccurred during ‘do it yourself’ de-mining, and many casualties have reportedknowing they were in mined areas.7 This problem tends to be addressed purelythrough mine-risk education (MRE) in an attempt to modify risk-taking behaviour.However, the root cause of the behaviour has to be addressed. Research showsthat most ‘spontaneous’ de-miners are well aware of the risks they are takingbut de-mine areas in the absence of alternatives because existing de-miningprioritisation mechanisms have not yet addressed their needs.8

A study of village de-mining in Cambodia demonstrated that people who livesurrounded by mines and UXO are well aware of the impact these devices have ontheir community. They do not clear all the mines they know about in theirvillages, but instead prioritise them, clearing only those which impede access tothe most needed land for housing, water, firewood, etc.9 Knowing the risksinvolved with this type of de-mining and balancing these against the greater risksof starvation or disease, village de-miners carefully prioritise their tasks. Thispractice should be a lesson from the grassroots level on prioritisation and theefficient use of resources, and it highlights the fact that there remains a need forNMAAs and mine action operators to respond more effectively to the needs ofaffected communities.

There have been many documented examples of previously ineffectiveprioritisation that with hindsight could have been avoided. In Bosnia andHerzegovina houses were cleared and rebuilt for minority returnees but, becauseof the actual political situation, no one came back, and the houses remainedempty. In Angola one particular large area cleared by NPA in 1997 because it wasdeemed suitable for cultivation is still not in use today. Subsequent investigationshowed that the land’s soil composition rendered it useless for planting crops, sothe assumption that it was an agricultural area was baseless, and the land hadbeen selected simply because it was known to contain mines.10

It is relatively easy to be wise in hindsight, but less so to ensure that de-miningoperators have foresight and ensure that tasks meet the ‘right’ criteria withoutcausing significant drains on de-mining time or resources while doing so and

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without conflicting with the national system of task allocation. NGOs sometimessee the NMAA as irrelevant or as an impediment to the achievement of their goals,perhaps disagreeing with the task allocation or target beneficiaries, and hencemay not wish to work within national systems. While there have beendocumented cases of unfair practices and while it is understandable to wantdonors’ money to be spent addressing ‘real’ needs, conducting a parallel systemof prioritisation does nothing for national capacity building or institutionallearning. Working within national systems, however weak they may be, shouldbe preferable to going against them, and an NGO should be able to set its ownpriorities at the local, operational level, factoring in organisational and local-community requirements within the broader framework of strategic priorities setout by the NMAA.

Impact-assessment approaches

‘Impact assessment’ is a term often heard on the development scene, used looselyand vaguely to indicate the effect or results of interventions by developmentprogrammes. After analysing and comparing various development NGOs, ChrisRoche defined impact assessment as ‘a systematic analysis of lasting or signifi-cant changes—positive and negative, intended or not—in people’s lives broughtabout by a given action or a series of actions’.11 This means that impact cannot bemeasured simply in terms of the intervention made—such as a piece of clearedland or an MRE performance given to children—but must be measured in terms ofhow that intervention changes real life for the beneficiaries.

Recent literature emphasises the need to focus evaluations away frommeasuring output as a desired product towards measuring the actual impact aprogramme has had.12 Within the mine action sector this translates into the needto view mine action as a means to an end and not as an end in itself. Conse-quently both NMAAs and mine action operators have to focus more seriously onthe impact of their interventions.

The mine action community has responded in different ways to this new focuson impact. One of the main problems is a confusion of terminology. In mineaction, the term ‘impact’ is used to describe both the negative impact of minesand UXO on communities and the positive impact of a mine action interventionitself. In the mine action sector, ‘impact’ predominantly refers to the negativesocioeconomic impact of mine contamination. This article, however, focuses onRoche’s definition of the term in order to examine the actual and likely impact ofa mine action intervention.

A study on socioeconomic approaches to mine action by the United NationsDevelopment Programme (UNDP) and the Geneva International Centre forHumanitarian Demining (GICHD) suggests there are two ways of assessing thelikely impact of a mine action intervention: analytic and responsive methods.13

Analytic methods use data and statistics to calculate impact, whereas responsivemethods respond to local requests. Responsive methods use local knowledge andcapacity and, by ensuring local ownership, are more likely to link mine actionactivities successfully with follow-up humanitarian and development plans.However, it is argued that using responsive methods alone involves the risk that

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de-mining interventions respond to private rather than public interests.14 Analyticmethods provide a quantitative objectivity that can more easily compare potentialtasks. This objectivity is entirely dependent upon the quality of the data input,and it would be costly and time-consuming to collect such data at the level ofdetail provided by local communities or authorities in their requests. It wouldseem logical to use both approaches as complements, with NMAAs or mine actionoperators responding to potential tasks that have been prioritised by local people,while using analytic methods to check the potential impact of each task using aconsistent set of criteria.

Rules for making decisions on which tasks to undertake can either be basedupon the ranking of alternatives—working from highest to lowest priorities—orthrough simpler methods, such as using a set of criteria to accept or eliminatepotential tasks, or using rules of thumb. It is argued that basing decisions onranking methods alone risks misrepresenting reality, which may lead to syste-matically incorrect decisions.15 Information concerning priorities can come eitherfrom participatory consultations with the communities, from requests from otherhumanitarian and development organisations, or from local officials; the cost ofobtaining this information decreases as one moves from the first to the last.16 Costis certainly a relevant factor in mine action, and where national prioritisationsystems based on bottom-up community priorities exist, it would probably bemore cost-effective for mine action operators to utilise and crosscheck throughthe application of a second set of criteria, rather than reiterating the entire processthemselves.

Harpviken et al prefer to group the various approaches to assessing impact intofour, which they identify as rules of thumb, cost–benefit analysis, compositeindicators and community studies.17 Rules of thumb involve simply categorisingthe types of area to be cleared and identifying, eg housing or infrastructure aspriority areas. This approach, they argue, is over-simplistic and does not actuallyfocus on impact.

The second approach uses cost–benefit analysis to assess impact and this is themain method advocated in the above-mentioned UNDP/GICHD study.18 Usingeconomic principles the net present value (NPV) of the post-de-mining worth ofland is calculated in order to see whether this is an economically viable invest-ment. While this approach does also factor in social issues, the major emphasis ison economics, which may not always be relevant in the humanitarian mine actionsector.

An example of this approach is the GICHD evaluation of the socioeconomicimpact of NPA’s mine action programme in Bosnia and Herzegovina.19 BecauseNPA works primarily in Sarajevo canton, the most populated and largest urbanarea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the NPV of tasks undertaken was calculated asfar exceeding the cost of the de-mining itself. Houses and industrial areas werecleared, leading to an assessment of the impact of NPA’s programme as very high.Without contesting the results, it is perhaps unfair to compare a capital city with aless populous rural area, where the calculated NPV and implied impact wouldundoubtedly be much lower. For a humanitarian organisation targeting sociallyand economically vulnerable groups, such as NPA, the NPV of land alone isperhaps insufficient as an indicator of impact. It is also difficult to validate the

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actual data used in such calculations: much of the data are based on assumptionsand, when using hard statistics to calculate impact, large variations may occurwith minor changes to the input data.

The third approach uses composite indicators to assess the negative impact ofmine contamination. This approach is most prominently used in mine action bythe Survey Working Group and Survey Action Center (SAC) in conducting LIS.20

The LIS is perhaps one of the most significant developments of recent years, as ittakes the focus of surveys away from mines and places it on the communitiesthey affect. The LIS measures community impact (ie the negative effect of mineson a community) with a composite index, the ‘community mine impact score’,which incorporates, in addition to the number of victims, general ‘blockage’indicators that are weighted in various ways. The LIS is a somewhat rigid surveyformat and procedure, but it can be adapted from country to country by changingthe weighting applied to each ‘blockage’ indicator and by adding locally specificindicators. The results of the survey are a ranking of communities in terms ofimpact (communities are ranked as being ‘high impact’, ‘medium impact’, ‘lowimpact’ and ‘no impact’), which is useful for national-level strategic planningand resource allocation.

The data used in the LIS, collected across the country by survey teams, have tobe quite general to facilitate swift collection and quantitative processing. It istherefore not possible to acquire a thorough profile of each community. Oncecollected and analysed, the data are usually held by the NMAA and used tofacilitate national-level co-ordination of activities and allocation of resources tothe most highly affected provinces. In addition, if the NMAA is in agreement,the LIS provides de-mining operators with a list of the most highly affectedcommunities in which to commence operations.

However, the LIS does not provide sufficient data on the specific areas thatneed to be technically surveyed within those communities. Often the geo-graphical boundaries of dangerous areas and information concerning the planneduse of each area and the number of people who will benefit post-de-mining arenot provided. Also, the results of the survey are not usually available until it iscomplete, which may take two to three years. In the interim period, the data arenot available to de-mining operators. Furthermore, the LIS requires the imple-mentation of a sophisticated information-management system, usually the UN-sponsored information management system for mine action (IMSMA), whichrequires additional human resources to be recruited and trained in its use. ForNMAAs, this is probably a justifiable expenditure, but for de-mining operators itmay not be. Like any survey, some of the information gathered is out of datealmost as soon as it has been collected, and caution should be exercised whenrelying on such data as the main vehicle for prioritisation over time. Such a‘snapshot’ overview may be sufficient for strategic planning purposes, but thedata need to be kept alive and to be more detailed if used to inform de-miningtask selection.

Using composite indicators as the prioritisation mechanism is effective fornational-level strategic planning, but at the operational level should be comple-mented by secondary, more community-based methods in order to provideoperators with sufficiently specific information for prioritising between potential

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de-mining tasks in a community identified as affected by mines. This could bedone through the use of community studies, which Harpviken et al propose as afourth approach to impact assessment applied before implementing de-miningprogrammes.21 This approach, developed by the Assistance to Mine AffectedCommunities (AMAC) project,22 requires a detailed understanding of and fullinteraction with mine-affected communities, and is perhaps the ideal approach interms of community involvement in the prioritisation and planning of mineaction activities. Using this more investigative assessment tool, AMAC researchershighlighted significant differences related to impact between communities inareas that had all been identified as ‘medium impact’ by an LIS. The community-studies approach requires that considerable time be spent gathering data, whichmakes it significantly more costly than the other approaches. However, stepshave been taken to rectify this, and a training course and manual for developinglocal capacities—aimed at improving the cost-effectiveness of implementation—has recently been published.23

The community-studies approach certainly focuses on the operational ratherthan the strategic level, and should be of more interest to an implementingorganisation than to an NMAA. However, given the aforementioned constraints ontime and resources in mine action, the approach is more likely to be applicablefor a de-mining organisation that is planning to stay in one area for a long time,so that detailed knowledge of the community pays off and the information gainedcan inform several tasks. It is unlikely to be necessary or cost-effective toimplement such detailed assessments in all de-mining contexts, particularlywhere a responsive approach has been adopted and existing local knowledge isalready being used to inform priorities. The approach would also be less viable ina country dominated by commercial operators, as it would be costly for the NMAA

to accrue such detailed information in order to define the exact scope of work tobe carried out under de-mining contracts. For their part, commercial operatorswould have no incentive to conduct community studies since their payment isbased on the number of square metres identified in their contracts.

Task impact assessment methodology

Task impact assessment is a tool designed by NPA to target the organisation’sactivities in the field effectively in order to ensure that its de-mining activitiesactually achieve their objectives and correspond to the needs of identified targetgroups and beneficiaries.24 It is therefore a tool for the mine action operator. Thebasic methodology of TIA involves asking a set of simple questions for eachpotential de-mining task identified: what will change as a result of de-mining inthe area? Why, when and how will this happen? And who will cause thesechanges to take place? If these questions cannot be answered, the availableinformation is considered insufficient for making a qualified decision on whetherthe area should be cleared. In this way, TIA provides a consistent set of criteriathat can be used to justify undertaking a particular task that may have beenprioritised by an external agency, usually the NMAA or a local authority. Ofcourse, if answers to the questions are not found, an area might still be cleared,but this would be at the risk of using scarce resources in an unjustifiable and

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unaccountable manner and not improving the living conditions of target popula-tions.

To help the field manager decide how to respond to information on suspectedmined areas, TIA looks at five types of information that affect the categorisationand eventual prioritisation of tasks. These are: 1) the type of beneficiaries; 2) thecontext in which these beneficiaries find themselves; 3) the type of post-de-mining activities planned for the area; 4) those responsible for carrying outpost-de-mining activities; and 5) the likelihood of changes to the plan. These areexplained in more detail below.

First, it is important to know the type of target groups and beneficiaries foreach potential task, and to know why these fall into the categories they do. MostNGOs have specific target groups for their organisation as a whole and for thespecific countries in which they are operating. Different decisions and measuresmay be taken depending on the category or the characteristics of beneficiaries.

Second, it is important to know the context in which the beneficiaries findthemselves and to understand their capacities and vulnerabilities. Differentdecisions and measures may be taken depending on the target groups’ strengthsand weaknesses. If a decision has to be made between clearance of an agri-cultural area that will be ready to use immediately after de-mining and clearanceof an area where the owner will then have to request seeds and equipment, theformer would take priority.

Third, it is important to ascertain the type of post-clearance activity that theland will be used for. This will assist in the planning of follow-on support, ifrequired, or in identifying the type of agency and/or authority that would be thenext point of contact for further information. In an emergency context this wouldmean agencies oriented towards humanitarian relief initiatives, such as pro-grammes that provide direct food distribution and the establishment of temporaryaccommodation for internally displaced persons arriving to new areas. In adevelopment context it would mean agencies engaged in longer-term develop-ment programmes and projects geared at creating a more sustainable alternativeto the existing situation. In other situations de-mining work may have no need ofthe involvement of post-de-mining activities, as in the case of clearance of a roador bridge that allows access to previously locked areas. For NGOs focusing onwider humanitarian assistance and development, such as NPA, TIA can act as thedata-collection mechanism that links their own de-mining and rehabilitationactivities. For organisations that only conduct de-mining, TIA can providerelevant data to other agencies to assist in the organisation of post-de-miningassistance. When such assistance has been organised and the land is ready to befarmed, the status of an identified task changes and it becomes a higher priorityfor clearance. In the previous case, where the first task is given priority, informa-tion collected about the latter task with regard to the beneficiaries’ need foradditional seeds and equipment can be forwarded to the relevant agencies thatprovide such services. The suspected area should continue to be monitored, andwhen the means to use the land have been established (in this case, when thelabour and materials are all in place), the de-mining tasks will become a higherpriority.

Once the planned post-de-mining activity has been established, it is useful to

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know which person, agency, body or authority will be responsible for fundingand implementing the post-de-mining activity. Lastly, the de-mining organisationshould assess the likelihood that plans may change. Other factors upon which therealisation of planned activities may be dependent, such as security or funding,should also be determined.

The above questions are answered by collecting information from two different‘environments’: non-mine action implementers, and target groups and bene-ficiaries. Non-mine action implementers are actors capable of and committed toimplementing the planned post-de-mining activities in order to improve thesocioeconomic living conditions of target groups. These include affected com-munities themselves, national and local authorities, institutes, agencies,ministries, NGOs, the UN and other international organisations. These can beaccessed through convened meetings and regular interagency meetings withrelevant bodies. The second environment is the target groups and beneficiaries,namely, all those benefiting from the mine action activity, whether directlyor indirectly, intentionally or unintentionally. The beneficiaries are initiallyidentified by the original informant of the suspected area or the requester of thede-mining, and further clarification of who will benefit from the de-mining ismade during a site visit. A meeting with the beneficiaries is arranged and theinformation required to answer the questions discussed above is collected at firsthand.

In addition to collecting answers to the TIA questions, the mine action organisa-tion itself—as a third ‘environment’—also needs to be assessed in order to ensurethat it has the necessary internal capacity—human resources, equipment,liquidity, etc—to carry out the task effectively, efficiently and in a timely manner.This is simply an internal assessment of the feasibility of conducting the task,usually carried out by the project manager. If the project is deemed to be highpriority but not currently feasible for the organisation, this conclusion must bedocumented and passed back to the NMAA (or its equivalent), along with allrelevant information collected.

A key part of TIA is the post-de-mining assessment of the impact of an inter-vention to see whether it has positively benefited the target groups as planned.Any shift from output-driven to impact-driven task selection and reporting isunlikely to be successful unless there is a systematic assessment of actual impactupon the completion of each operation. In fact, this is the true meaning of impactassessment: assessing the actual impact an intervention has had. All informationgained through TIA before a task is conducted is checked afterwards to seewhether the land is being used as planned and whether the living conditions oftarget groups have improved. If the land is not in use, why this is the case needsto be assessed. Perhaps pledged funds were not available for the post-clearancereconstruction of a house or perhaps the political situation has changed. Equally,the reason for the non-use may simply be lack of confidence in the safety of theland, something that can be rectified by the clearance organisation. This post-operational analysis part of TIA is essential, especially if effective organisationallearning is to take place.25

TIA is ideally conducted following a general mine action assessment (‘level 1’,general survey or landmine impact survey) and uses as its starting point the list of

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highly impacted communities and suspected or known mined areas that the NMAA

has prioritised for de-mining. In this way, it is responsive to local priorities. Afield assessment is then conducted, primarily through interviews with representa-tives of the two ‘environments’, in order to obtain information on the five funda-mental questions raised above for each of the potential tasks. These can then becategorised according to whether they require immediate survey and clearance,monitoring for later clearance, fencing or removal from the suspected area.

TIA is conducted as an integral part of the de-mining process and existingmembers of the mine action team collect the data. Given the contact with thelocal community that TIA requires, it is ideally conducted in conjunction withgeneral-survey and MRE activities. In terms of labour the equivalent of one personworking part-time (or, for a larger programme, one or two working full-time) isrequired, plus logistic support. A training package has been developed by NPA,but often training is best carried out on the job, with the TIA concept beingamended to suit the particular country context. In terms of other resources TIA

requires no extra equipment or software to be in place. In Croatia, TIA is carried out by the TIA/MRE officer, who is also responsible for

MRE within the programme. Working closely with the project manager and thesurvey team leader (all three locally recruited and familiar with the area ofoperations), the TIA/MRE officer liaises with local authorities and the NMAA toreceive potential tasks from the various actors within the mine action system.Rationales for the tasks and information on subsequent development plans for theareas are stipulated at this stage. In addition, the TIA/MRE officer attends regularUN/NGO interagency co-ordination meetings to obtain input and feedback fromother non-mine action implementers on potential tasks and to acquire informationon tasks that may have been overlooked by the authorities. The TIA/MRE officerthen visits potential sites to speak to landowners and local residents in order toget a better understanding of the problem, beneficiaries, planned land use, etc.This process is conducted for every potential task, whether the task comes fromlocal authorities, the NMAA, an NGO (including NPA’s own ReconstructionProgramme) or from information on suspected areas gained through NPA’s ownsurvey activities.

The data collected (ie answers to the five questions, gathered from bothenvironments) are then analysed in a qualitative manner. To date the number ofpotential tasks to be analysed together at any one time has been relatively small(about 10–15). The tasks that have the highest numbers of beneficiaries, whichare logistically feasible for the organisation and where resources are available toensure that the land is used immediately upon clearance take priority over othertasks. The exception to this has been tasks involving an urgent security aspect,such as following a landmine incident or the discovery of a dangerous area thatposes an immediate security risk. In such cases, the TIA process is still conductedand documented, but it is done in a very prompt manner since detailed examina-tion of who owns the land and how it is to be used in the longer term is lessrelevant.

Though subjective, this method of analysis has worked well in practice andseems sufficient to meet the needs of NPA as a mine action organisation operatingat the local level. One advantage of this methodology is that it is simple to

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conduct and could be carried out by almost anyone within the organisation forany potential task, in any location, without requiring a particular or sophisticatedinformation system to process the data.

TIA in context

In itself TIA is perhaps not an impact-assessment approach but rather a comple-mentary impact-assessment tool that fits in with the other approaches identified,specifically addressing the gap between macro-level and operational require-ments. It takes data from the NMAA on highly impacted communities or suspectedmined areas and, by applying a standardised set of criteria, produces a prioritisedseries of de-mining tasks. The main benefit of TIA is that it complements othernational systems of prioritisation, allowing de-mining organisations to work tonational priorities while still maintaining control of the tasks they undertakethemselves.

One example of where NPA uses TIA is in Croatia, where the national systeminvolves a bottom-up approach to identifying priority areas for de-mining.Municipalities in mine-affected areas channel their lists of suspected minedareas through the county to the NMAA, which then, having factored in nationalpriorities, produces an annual de-mining plan. NPA responds to these tasks fromthe NMAA, the county and the municipal authorities, and conducts its ownanalysis (TIA) in the community to assess the positive impact that each potentialtask would have. Where a requested de-mining task meets the TIA criteria,indicating its likelihood of having a positive impact on NPA’s target groups, it isrecommended that the task is conducted. Links are maintained with the localcommunity throughout the de-mining process and NPA follows up regularly afterde-mining to see whether the land is being used as planned and to assess thesocioeconomic benefit the de-mining has provided for the beneficiaries.

In addition to the targeting of de-mining activities, TIA can also be a useful toolfor identifying priority areas for MRE. While there has been much talk in recentyears about the integration of MRE within de-mining, this is far from beingstandard practice for mine action operators in most countries. In Croatia NPA

found that implementing TIA obliged the organisation to have contact with keypersons living in and around mine-affected areas (ie direct and indirect bene-ficiaries). Once owners, users and others in the vicinity of the land have beenidentified and contact established with them during the TIA process, it becomeseasier to go back and speak to the same people for MRE purposes. The TIA/community liaison ‘team’ returns to the area before de-mining operations start toinform the local community when the de-mining will befin, how long it will last,what the markings will look like, where safe and unsafe areas will be, etc. Oncethis has been done by the survey team or by the de-miners (who are in the fieldevery day), it is easier to establish bonds with local residents and create an under-standing of the de-mining operation within the community.

MRE activities are often a catalyst for gathering further information that waspreviously unknown to the existing informants and compilers of priorities withinthe national system. An illustration from Croatia is provided by NPA’s facilitationof a church service dedicated to mine action. The NMAA and the local authorities

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gave information to local residents on areas cleared to date, plans for clearanceand areas still suspected to contain mines. The priest described how to behave indangerous areas and around operational de-mining sites, emphasising that theremoval of minefield marking was sinful. The service was also used as an oppor-tunity to request information from the congregation on other known dangerousareas. As a result, seven new suspected mined areas were reported that hadpreviously been unknown to the mayor and therefore not included in the annualde-mining request to the NMAA. NPA subsequently conducted TIA in these areas toassess their potential as tasks for technical survey and clearance.

Survey, TIA and MRE all relate to the gathering, exchange and provision ofinformation, and it therefore makes sense that they are conducted by the sameteam. In addition to the classic mine-awareness or education activities conductedin schools, town halls, etc, the TIA process ensures ongoing contact is maintainedwith local residents near dangerous areas, permitting reiteration of the safetymessage. In Croatia, for example, while gathering the TIA information, additionalquestions are asked in order to identify the extent to which additional MRE needsto be carried out in that area. Simple questions—such as whether people areaware of safe and unsafe areas, how they access that information and what risk-management behaviour they are adopting—along with numbers of casualties inthe area, can indicate whether de-mining and its supporting community-liaisonfunction are sufficient within a given community to reduce the risk of injury, orwhether there is a need for additional education activities, via local churches,schools, etc.

The concept underlying TIA and the five basic areas it addresses are applicableto most de-mining tasks, whether large-scale ones prioritised at the national levelor smaller ones addressing micro-level human needs. However, with the currentmethod of analysis, problems may arise when trying to compare larger andsmaller tasks. Likewise, were TIA to be implemented on a larger scale, forexample on all potential tasks targeted by the NMAA, there would undoubtedlybe a requirement to refine the analytical process and introduce some level ofquantitative analysis to enable more accurate comparisons of larger volumes ofdata.

The way in which the data are currently analysed is probably the chief weak-ness of TIA, and an area in which improvements can be made. One idea might beto take the existing set of questions and, using the composite indicator approach,weight each according to relative importance. This could be used to conduct aninitial filtering out of low-priority tasks and allow the remaining ones to beexamined in a qualitative manner as before, or perhaps to be more formallysubject to a group decision on the ranking of each task in order of priority on acase-by-case basis. In such a case, the decision-making group should includerepresentatives from the operations department and the TIA team and might alsoinclude other managers, as well as representatives from the NMAA and the localcommunity.

Conclusion

This article suggests that current tools for assessing impact are primarily used at

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the national level, for the purposes of strategic planning and co-ordination, andargues the need for a tool to assist in categorising potential tasks for prioritisationat the operational level, within overall strategic priorities. It presents TIA as thetool used for addressing this requirement within NPA.

TIA differs notably from other impact-assessment tools in that it is not anassessment of the negative impact of mines on the whole community nor ofthe final outcome of the intervention, but rather a predictive assessment of thepositive impact de-mining tasks may have. To date TIA has been used by onemine action operator to bridge the gap between the output of general mine actionassessment (either the list of affected communities from an LIS or a list ofsuspected mined areas from a general/level 1 survey) and the conducting oftechnical survey and mine clearance within its own area of operations. TIA is asimple tool, appropriate for de-mining operators, but its methodology, thoughsound in principle, may be somewhat subjective in terms of its analysis.

There is a case, however, for making wider use of TIA. For example, all de-mining operators in a country could be requested by the NMAA to carry out similarassessments, using a standard set of criteria. As a result, at the operational level,the approach to prioritising tasks would be similar across the nation, whichwould contribute to the overall achievement of national strategic goals. Thiscould be the case, for example, in Afghanistan, where some NGOs are currentlyprioritising their own tasks, using their own criteria. While NGOs may be initiallyagainst such ‘intrusion’ by an NMAA, most organisations that prioritise humani-tarian mine action tasks are probably already using common criteria, such asthe number of beneficiaries, the type of land use, etc. If the methodology andanalytical methods were agreed by all stakeholders and then standardised for useby all operators, there could be no real argument for working outside theseparameters. However, this approach would not be applicable to countries inwhich commercial de-mining prevails, where the NMAA stipulates the exact scopeof the work to be carried out and the clearance organisation only clears the areasdefined.

Alternatively, TIA could be applied by an NMAA to assess all suspected minedareas and potential tasks before deploying de-mining resources, whether bycontracting to a commercial company or by allocating the task to an NGO. Thiswould enable the NMAA to demonstrate the task prioritisation and selectionprocess and show how objectives can be met. However, this may cause problemswhen comparing tasks of a different scale and nature—for example, large infra-structure tasks and village wells. Therefore, if TIA were to be managed by theNMAA, the methodology for analysing criteria would need to be stricter, removingroom for subjectivity and ensuring a consistent approach to all tasks.

Standardisation of the TIA approach for implementation by an NMAA iscurrently being piloted by the NMAA in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The pilot projectby the Survey Action Center to implement a modified version of TIA is calledTask Assessment and Planning (TAP), and is to be carried out at the national levelby Bosnia and Herzegovina in conjunction with the LIS.26 As soon as the LIS datafrom a community have been collected and analysed, the TAP teams will bedeployed in communities that have been identified by the ‘community impactscore’ as ‘high impact’ (ie where mines have a high negative impact on the

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community). The teams, each consisting of two general surveyors from Bosniaand Herzegovina and a socioeconomic surveyor, will spend several days or morein the community, conducting a terrain assessment as well as collecting detailedTIA-like information. Each of the suspected mined areas will be assessed andcategorised, with a recommendation to clear, technically survey and fence,monitor, or take no action.

With its close link to MRE and the community, TIA also has the potential to bethe catalyst for creating and supporting an ongoing ‘active surveillance system’within affected communities. This idea, discussed in recent mine action work-shops,27 would use a community representative to update the information gainedthrough an LIS or another type of survey, keeping it live after the surveyors havemoved on. This is an idea that NPA should explore further and also something thatcould be addressed in the pilot TAP project.

In summary, TIA provides the mine action operator with a consistent set ofcriteria upon which to make an informed decision when selecting one clearancetask before another, by allowing the potential benefit and impact of each inter-vention to be assessed before implementation. It is cost-effective in that itrequires few extra personnel and no extra equipment and can be tailored towork within the context of any programme to complement any existing nationalprioritisation system. Ultimately it may provide the necessary benchmarks formeasuring the impact of activities after implementation as part of any requiredevaluation process. It strengthens the link between information collection and de-mining, ensuring the application of impact-driven rationales at the operationallevel, where, ultimately, it has to work if mine action is truly to be made moreeffective.

Notes1 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel

Mines and on Their Destruction, available at http://www.icbl.org/treaty/treatyenglish.html.2 In this article, ‘mine’ refers to landmines, unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war.3 Findings of the 5th Anniversary Conference of the 1997 Oslo Text Negotiations: ‘The Future of

Humanitarian Mine Action’, Oslo, 12–14 September 2002, at http://www.prio.no/amac/conference2002.html.

4 See, for example, The German Initiative to Ban Landmines, Mine Action Programmes from aDevelopment-Oriented Point of View (‘The Bad Honnef Framework’), Berlin: German Initiative toban Landmines, 1999; R Eaton, C Horwood & N Niland, ‘Multi-country mine action study: studyreport—the development of indigenous mine action capacities’, United Nations Department ofHumanitarian Affairs, New York, 1997; and UNMAS, ‘Mine Action and Effective Coordination: TheUnited Nations Policy’, A/53/496, United Nations, New York, 1998.

5 Human Rights Watch, Landmine Monitor Report 2002: Towards a Mine-Free World, Washington,DC: Human Rights Watch, 2001.

6 Norwegian People’s Aid, Humanitarian Mine Action 2002, Oslo: Norwegian People’s Aid, 2002, p 2.7 ‘A BBC sponsored study in Cambodia in 1993 found that 80% of victims knew they were in a

minefield when they sustained their injuries. Other studies have also found that economic necessitypropels people into known mined areas.’ Eaton et al, ‘Multi-country mine action study’.

8 R Bottomley, ‘Spontaneous demining initiatives: mine clearance by villagers in rural Cambodia’,Phnom Penh: Handicap International Belgium, 2001.

9 Ibid.10 Documented case studies provided by NPA Policy Advisor Sara Sekkenes to the author in 2002.11 C Roche, Impact Assessment for Development Agencies: Learning to Value Change, Oxford: Oxfam,

1999, p 21.12 Ibid.

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13 UNDP/GICHD, A Study of Socio-Economic Approaches to Mine Action, Geneva: UNDP/GICHD, 2001.14 Ibid.15 Ibid.16 Ibid.17 K B Harpviken, A Millard, K Kjellman & A Strand, ‘SIDA’s contributions to humanitarian mine

action: final report’, Evaluation 01/06, Stockholm: Swedish International Development CooperationAgency (SIDA), 2002.

18 UNDP/GICHD, A Study of Socio-Economic Approaches to Mine Action.19 GICHD, ‘Evaluation of the socio-economic impact of NPA’s mine action programme in Bosnia and

Herzegovina 1998–2000’, unpublished document, Geneva, 2001.20 R Kidd, ‘The Landmine Impact Survey process’, Journal of Mine Action, 4 (3), 2001, pp 45–49, at

http://www.maic.jmu.edu/journal/4.3/focus/Yemen/yemen.htm. 21 Harpviken et al, ‘SIDA’s contributions to humanitarian mine action’.22 K B Harpviken & A Millard, Reassessing the Impact of Humanitarian Mine Action: Illustrations from

Mozambique, PRIO Report 1/2000, Oslo: PRIO, 2000.23 A Millard, Assessing Landmine Impact at the Community Level: A Training Manual, Oslo: PRIO,

2002.24 S Sekkenes, Task Impact Assessment: A Training Module, Sarajevo: NPA, 2001.25 Harpviken et al, ‘SIDA’s contributions to humanitarian mine action’.26 T Paterson, S Sekkenes & G Wickware, ‘Task assessment and planning: a pilot project in Bosnia and

Herzegovina, mission report’, unpublished document, Sarajevo, 2002.27 Here, I draw upon discussions held at the Strategic Planning Workshop for the Mine Action

Programme in Afghanistan, Kabul, 1–10 March 2003, and at the Mine Risk Education WorkingGroup, Geneva, 13–14 March 2003.

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