Needs Assessment in Lao PDR

by Jo Durham [ Mines Advisory Group ]

This article describes the needs-assessment process and findings for mine-risk education in Lao PDR. Issues that arise are identifying those at risk, why they are at risk, and what can be done about it.

Mine-risk education is an integral component of humanitarian mine action and, as with other HMA components, should be a planned intervention. A needs assessment—the process of systematically collecting and analysing information in order to identify who is at risk, why, and what can be done about it—is an essential precursor to programme planning and implementation. A good needs analysis can help programme managers develop appropriate, targeted and effective interventions that address the needs of the target populations. It is a crucial step in framing an appropriate response to risk reduction.

Recognising the importance of a needs assessment in preparation for its new five-year strategy for the Lao People's Democratic Republic and based on an earlier Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining evaluation, UNICEF commissioned Mines Advisory Group to undertake an MRE needs assessment in five provinces in Lao PDR.

Background to the Needs Assessment

Lao PDR has the distinction of being, per capita, the most heavily bombed nation in the world.¹ As a result of intense ground battles and extensive bombing during the Indochina War,² especially during the years 1964–73, there is widespread contamination of UXO, which continues to act as a barrier to socioeconomic development and causes death and injury to adults and children. These injuries can result in long-term medical and psychological after effects as well as a huge financial burden to affected individuals, families, their communities and health services.

The government of Lao PDR, with assistance from the United Nations Development Programme and UNICEF, established the Lao PDR Trust Fund for UXO in 1995 to finance a national programme of clearance and education. A national survey on the socioeconomic impact of UXO was conducted³ and reported UXO contamination in 25 percent of all Laotian villages. The United Nations Development Assistance Framework for Lao PDR,⁴ as well as other government and donor documents, identifies UXO and the threat it continues to pose to both livelihood security and personal safety as cross-cutting issues in tackling poverty.

As with most other mine-action programmes, the Lao MRE programme aims to promote safety in UXO-contaminated communities and has been primarily underpinned by psychological theories of behaviour change, such as the Health Belief Model.⁵ More specifically, UNICEF has supported MRE for children in several at-risk communities in 12 of the most heavily contaminated provinces. In preparation for its next five-year strategy, UNICEF commissioned MAG to undertake a risk assessment to ascertain who is currently at risk and why, as well as what can be done to mitigate the risk.

The assessment also found the general categories often used to characterize at-risk populations—that is, the uninformed, the unaware, the reckless and the intentional—were less relevant to the context of Lao PDR. Instead, the study distinguished between intentional exposure (i.e., voluntary) to live ordnance—where actors aware of the risk purposefully expose themselves to live ordnance—and unintentional exposure (involuntary). Voluntary exposure may include for example, moving an item of UXO to another location or tampering with ordnance for economic gain. Voluntary exposure included groups identified as high risk, for example: Adult scrap-metal collectors , Adults who move UXO out of farming land , Scrap-metal dealers , Adults who deliberately dismantle UXO , Children who collect scrap metal , Children who play or tamper with UXO , Adults and children who work on agricultural land , Out-of-school youth and young children

Unintentional exposure. Unintentional exposure to UXO injury is when a person's exposure to live ordnance is unplanned and may include exposure due to inattention or lack of knowledge. While some of the prevention activities may be the same, intentionality is an important variable and particularly relevant in Lao PDR where UXO injury due to intentional exposure to live ordnance (for example through the deliberate tampering of ordnance for the scrap-metal trade) is known to be increasing.¹⁰

Involuntary exposure, such as exposure to sub-surface UXO while farming, is generally feared due to the lack of control people have over the situation. People have reported voluntarily exposing themselves to UXO—for example, removing items from farming land—in order to avoid possible unintentional exposure later. Contributing factors to involuntary exposure include the inability of clearance agencies to respond to the needs of farmers and a lack of alternative agricultural land. The following quote expresses a view shared by many and helps to illustrate the farmers' plight as well as highlighting the higher level of fear that surrounds involuntary exposure: "No clearance team comes and helps us, so even though it is not safe to move, when we find items of UXO this farming season, we need to move them, otherwise the following year when we farm again we don't know where they are."

Intentional exposure. The assessment identified a number of perceptual, cognitive, pragmatic and economic market factors that informed respondents' rational defence of voluntary risk-taking behaviour. Respondents reported weighing benefits and costs of UXO risk activities compared with other household risks. A key household risk, for example, is basic food insecurity, which is often a motivating force in the decision to engage with, or at least potentially engage with, UXO.

In trying to meet basic needs such as food security, individuals and households also consider the costs and benefits of alternative income-generating options, sometimes preferring activities that may expose them to UXO, such as scrap-metal collection. Where other options had more perceived advantages than scrap-metal collection, however, people reportedly abandoned scrap-metal collection for alternative sources of income. Thus, while contributing factors of voluntary exposure to UXO were often rooted in poverty, it was rarely perceived by communities or individuals as the only option. More commonly, intentional UXO risk-taking was found to be based on a rational decision-making process involving weighing the potential costs and benefits of a range of available options.

The most common ways in which people voluntarily expose themselves to UXO risk is through collecting or dealing in scrap metal, moving UXO from farmland and dismantling UXO. The following quote from one of the female respondents illustrates how contamination levels combined with the need to uphold basic food security and an insufficient UXO clearance response contribute to people deciding to voluntarily take risk: "I found more than 10 BLUs⁷ in my new farming land. Each time I moved them into one place and kept farming as my family land is very small so I need to keep farming in that area."

Predisposing factors that contribute to high-risk behaviour include level of contamination of farming land, belief that some UXO are relatively safe to move, perceptions of safe behaviours and the desire to investigate metal-detector signals. Enabling factors include ease of picking up and moving UXO items, availability of metal detectors and inability of clearance agencies to respond in a timely manner to reports of UXO on farming land, UXO removal being sometimes perceived as the removal of a legitimate cash crop, and a certain level of social and parental acceptance of UXO risk-taking behaviour, even where a UXO incident may have economic and social consequences for families and communities. Reinforcing factors include food-security problems, which motivate people to engage in the collection of scrap metal, lack of alternative income-generating activities, price of scrap metal and lack of access to alternative farming land that is not contaminated with UXO.

A respondent stated, "I moved three bombies from the bottom of a bomb crater. When I was digging, I hit one of the bombies so I slowly picked it up and moved it out from the bomb crater to a nearby area. I was afraid when moving the bombie, but I needed the money. In one bomb crater I could get 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of scrap metal." Currently, scrap metal is approximately 1,700 kip per kilo (approximately US$0.08/lb.¹¹). Nearly all UXO contamination is in rural Lao PDR where most people—about 80 percent of the population—are subsistence rice farmers and have limited options for generating a cash income if they stay within their communities and home base.

Almost all respondents who reported voluntary exposure to potentially live ordnance were able to provide examples of the risk-reduction strategies they took. These indigenous risk-reduction strategies are often at odds, however, with expert views of safe handling of UXO. Indeed, some respondents also recognised that their strategies might still result in injury and tried to learn more by watching village experts or surreptitiously observing UXO clearance teams to learn from the way they handle UXO. Scrap-metal collectors, including men, women and children, using locally procured metal detectors also had a number of risk-reduction strategies including the one described in the following statements:

• "I feel safer when digging, more confident that it isn't a UXO when I hear the small beeps."
• "The system of the detector is that if we find a small piece of scrap, we get a different sound; if we find a large piece of metal, we get a loud sound."

While a number of respondents were able to describe strategies they use for distinguishing between safe and unsafe ordnance, respondents identified accurate recognition skills as an area in which they felt they needed more knowledge, according to one scrap-metal dealer: "Without knowing it, I have bought many things from villagers—BLUs¹² with explosives, hand grenades with no pins, bullets, mortar shells with gunpowder inside."

The survey also identified a number of contradictions. For example, scrap-metal collection on the one hand is perceived as being potentially risky but on the other hand is not necessarily associated with accidents. This may be due to a cognitive coping strategy whereby the risk is explained away as being exaggerated or a belief that the person has the necessary skills to remain in control.