First National Mine Victims Assistance Workshop in BH

The Workshop "Defining priorities for Mine Victims Assistance" was held in Sarajevo, from 26 to 28 February 2007. The main goal of the Workshop was to assist the Government of BiH to meet its obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina in meeting its obligations in relation to Mine Victims Assistance under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and to raise awareness on the rights and needs of mine survivors and other persons with disabilities. As a result the conclusions of the Workshop will be elaborated into a BiH MVA action plan 2007 - 2009 and beyond. The Workshop was funded by Austria through ITF, which also provided logistic support.

The Workshop brought together representatives from the Ministries of both entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, international agencies, NGOs and mine survivors themselves. In three days of work priorities were set and tasks identified  in the field of medical assistance, physical rehabilitation, psycho-social support and economic reintegration and in the field of legislation, policy and coordination. The Workshop concluded with a plenary session where the conclusions from the three working groups were presented. All the participants acknowledged that the Workshop represents the start of the process and more efforts will be needed to develop an actual action plan in the upcoming weeks.