Africa-Press – Angola. The director general of the National Mine Action Agency (ANAM), Brigadier Leonardo Sapalo, said Wednesday (22), in Geneva, Switzerland, that Angola has objective conditions to comply with article 5 of the Ottawa Convention, by 2025. .
He defended, however, that national and international partners should continue to mobilize resources, through bilateral and multilateral actions to cover the estimated financial need of US$228.5 million.
According to a note from the Permanent Mission of Angola to the United Nations offices in Geneva, that official was speaking at the last plenary session of the meetings of the States Parties to the Ottawa Treaty on banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel land mines and about its destruction, which took place from Monday until yesterday in Geneva.
Leonardo Sapalo underlined that “the Angolan Executive and its partners have made significant efforts to mobilize human, financial and material resources, to comply with the provisions of article 5 of the Ottawa Convention, as reiterated during the 4th Conference, held in Oslo , in 2019”.
He admitted that Angola, which has over 73.7 million square meters mined, committed to destroying or ensuring the destruction of all anti-personnel mines in its jurisdiction as soon as possible, as recommended by Article 5 of the Ottawa Convention, but underlined that world events, beyond our control, prevented such a feat.”
The country, according to Leonardo Sapalo, has made qualitative progress, namely the elaboration of the national strategy 2020-2025 that focuses on fulfilling the obligations related to article 5 and the plan to implement the same standard of the Convention for the period 2020-2025, aligned with the national strategy and in the light of the Oslo action plan.
Other progress made by the Angolan Executive, he said, has to do with the annual update of the Article 5 implementation plan, the holding of regular operational coordination meetings, the establishment of 12 national mine action norms, in accordance with the updated international standards (IMAS).
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