Aljazeera news website published an article covering the views of Sultan Hajiyev, Deputy Head of the Secretariat, Coordination Unit for Reconstruction and Rehabilitation of the liberated territories of the Azerbaijan Republic and Vugar Suleymanov, Chairman of the Board of the Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA).

The article highlighted the problem of landmines caused by Russian invasion against Ukraine, as well as the Armenian occupation of Karabakh, which has lasted for more than 30 years.

In addition, in the published article, the adoption and approval of "mine-free world" as the 18th Sustainable Development Goals of the UN and the call for a global approach to this problem were widely included.

The problem with mine clearance is the cost. Azerbaijan is better economically placed than most to fund activities and still, it could only clear 514sq km in two years. In general, the countries that need demining the most are those least able to afford it, as conflicts that contaminate territories with landmines also shatter economies. To ensure funding, a landmine-free world should be made a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), alongside the 17 interlinked global goals to be achieved by 2030.

This idea was put forward and discussed at the Humanitarian Conference on Mine Action, organised by the Azerbaijan Mine Action Agency and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Baku earlier this year. Current international treaties are not enough, nor are national programmes.

According to a report by the demining monitor Mine Action Review, only 153.4sq km were cleared across the world in 2020. It also rated less than a quarter of national demining programmes as “good” or “very good”; the rest were too underfunded to make any significant progress. That does not bode well for Ukraine.

However, if demining is given SDG status, the benefits would be felt immediately. First, this designation would help coordinate global efforts, bring access to international financial mechanisms and ease the burden on underfunded national programmes.

Second, an SDG status would help to ring-fence that funding, putting budgets for demining on the same footing as, for instance, education development programmes. In a post-war, post-COVID setting where funds are limited, this is critical.

Third, SDGs attract more funding for research and development, as we have seen with efforts to promote clean energy and sustainable cities. Simply throwing money at demining is not enough: the cost per unit for removal needs to come down.

However, perhaps the strongest argument for making a mine-free world an SDG is the simplest: it should be. In areas contaminated with mines, development, let alone sustainable development, is impossible.

According to a 2017 joint study by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining and the UNDP, mine action is of direct relevance to 12 of the UN’s existing SDGs, while indirectly supporting another four. Take SDG number two: to end hunger, achieve food security and achieve sustainable agriculture. Where mines cover large swathes of farmland – as they do in Ukraine – they directly impact a country’s ability to produce its own food. Or take SDG number four: to ensure equitable and inclusive education. Mined areas can make it much more difficult for children to reach school and even educational facilities themselves may be mined during a conflict. This inevitably impacts school enrolment and access to education.

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