Clearing the Path for Post-Conflict Recovery Innovations and Challenges in Demining

Contamination by landmines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs) is a global issue with significant humanitarian and economic consequences, hindering post-conflict recovery efforts.
Listed among the nations most affected by landmines, Azerbaijan, with an estimated 1.5 million landmines and unknown UXOs from conflicts since the early 1990s, faces severe risks to civilians and socio-economic development. Over the last 30 years, the cumulative toll of landmine victims in Azerbaijan has reached 3,429, including 352 fatalities that occurred to date since 2020, underscoring the urgent need for mine clearance and victim assistance. According to official assessments, demining operations in Azerbaijan will require around US$ 25 billion and could take over 30 years.
Azerbaijan, along with Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, Angola, China, Iraq, Cambodia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kuwait, and Vietnam, faces a combined legacy of over 100 million landmines. Additionally, recent conflicts in Ukraine have left 30% of its territory suspected of contamination.
After the liberation of its territories in the end of the 2020, the government of Azerbaijan launched an extensive humanitarian demining process that underpins the reconstruction of infrastructure, public services and dwellings, thus allowing the safe return of around 680,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their areas of origin. . The government is providing 90% of the resources dedicated to demining and receives institutional/technical and capacity building assistance from UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, ICRC, NATO with funding mainly from EU, UK, Saudi Arabia and USA. Notably, it can cost as little as 1 USD to produce a landmine, but more than a 1,000 USD to safely remove one. Foreign assistance has been disappointingly low, both in light of the gravity of demining challenges Azerbaijan confronts and when compared to the level of contributions typically made by the international donor community to similar issues elsewhere.
Recognizing the humanitarian impact and impediment to peace and reconciliation, President Ilham Aliyev declared humanitarian demining as Azerbaijan's 18th National Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in March 2023. The SDG, presented at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit and a humanitarian conference in Baku, outlines goals for territory clearance, economic activity, improved living standards, and social protection.
The government of Azerbaijan has thus joined Lao PDR and Cambodia in declaring demining as their 18th national SDG and intends to continue to advocate the inclusion of demining in the UN Agenda 2030 as the 18th global Sustainable Development Goal.