Socio-Economic Reintegration of Landmine Survivors:
A Three-Country Program

In the spring of 1999, WRF in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) began the coordination of a three-year global effort to plan and promote new approaches to the socioeconomic integration of landmine survivors and others with disabilities in Cambodia, Lebanon, and Mozambique. With a focus on victim assistance, WRF is working to strengthen existing programs and structures by developing and promoting culturally relevant services to increase social and economic opportunities for landmine survivors and their families.

By creating in-country partnerships with governmental and non-governmental organizations, WRF is developing effective models of operation and defining best practices to move landmine survivors from incident through reintegration.

One product of WRF’s efforts that has the potential to affect change in strategies to reintegrate landmine survivors globally, has been the development of the WRF Guidelines for the Socio-Economic Reintegration of Landmine Survivors, which are aimed towards policy makers as well as international and national organizations in landmine-affected countries. These guidelines, currently in draft form, were published as part of Providing Assistance to Landmine Victims: A Collection of Guidelines, Best Practices and Methodology and presented at the Meeting of the Standing Experts on Victim Assistance in Geneva in May 2001.

Specific interventions in the target countries are:

   • Working with mine action centers to develop policy
     initiatives towards victim assistance.

   • Strengthening vocational capabilities and entrepreneurial
     skills of landmine survivors and their families.

   • Increasing social and political awareness of
     the capabilities and needs of people with disabilities.

   • Enhancing the effectiveness of community-based
     rehabilitation services to assist communities in the
     integration of disabled people and their families.

   • Mobilizing business communities to participate in
     reintegration of landmine survivors and their dependents.

WRF is seeking additional funds to expand these pilot projects to full implementation in order to increase opportunities for a greater number of landmine survivors throughout Cambodia, Lebanon, and Mozambique.