Angola

Stockpile Destruction Project

Brief Description:

According to Article 4 of the Ottawa Convention, State Parties must destroy their stockpiled anti-personnel landmines within 4 years of their accession to the anti-personnel mine-ban convention.  On March 1, 1999, the Ottawa Convention went into effect for the first group of 45 countries, requiring them to meet a March 1, 2003 deadline.  Reports submitted to the United Nations show that 98 percent of the countries with a March 1 deadline achieved their goals.  As of May 25, 2004, 142 countries were parties to the Convention.   Angola is among those 142 countries, and has a January 1, 2007 deadline for the complete disposal of stockpiles that are under its jurisdiction or control. 

In 2004, the Government of Angola officially requested for the technical assistance from UNDP for the formulation and implementation of the stockpile destruction project.  As a result, this 2-year project was developed and its implementation started in 2005.

Expected results:

The project will have two main outputs:

1)      to fulfill Article 4 of the Ottawa Convention that aims at the disposal of all stockpiled anti-personnel landmines by January 2007; and

2)      to develop the technical, managerial and administrative capacities of Angolan national authorities to undertake the stockpile destruction operation of anti-personnel landmines according to the international humanitarian mine-action standards.

Target areas: Entire country