Afghanistan
An orientation session for the new SAC team was held in Takoma Park 19-22 May. The team of Alan Macdonald (Senior Technical Advisor), Peter Sugden (Operations Advisor), Robert Abelsen (GIS & DB Advisor), and Gohar Margaryan (Finance & Admin Advisor) assembled for discussions of LIS planning and operations (Click here to meet them). The team arrived in Kabul 26 May to begin office setup.

Angola
Begona Fontan Pena, a veteran of the Azerbaijan LIS survey, is now a lead member of the Angola LIS team as the Finance & Administration Officer (acting Program Manager) at the SAC Coordination Center in Luanda. Begona came to Takoma Park on 27-29 May for Angola LIS finance/administration and program orientation. She arrived in Luanda 31 May for continued sub-contract negotiations and office setup. The positions of Survey Coordinator (Click here for Terms of Reference) and Field Coordinator (Click here for Terms of Reference) remain open. Please submit CV and cover letter to jobs@sac-na.org.

Azerbaijan
Final report writing is in process with some additional field work being conducted for quality assurance purposes.

Bosnia-Herzegovina
Data collection continues with 1,140 surveys completed as of 30 May. Bob Eaton visited Sarajevo to finalize Task Assessment and Planning setup with the BHMAC.

Eritrea
Data collection is on-going in all regions of the country with over 500 mine-suspected communities visited to-date.

Ethiopia
Data collection is on-going in all regions of the country with over 350 mine-suspected communities visited to-date.

Somalia
The LIS final report is in review by government officials in Hargeisa prior to final review and publication by SAC.

GLS Evaluation
The Global Landmine Survey evaluation task has been awarded to Scanteam. They will begin the evaluation with meetings in Ottawa, Vancouver, New York and Washington from 2-6 June.

Survey Working Group
The Survey Working Group met on 12 May in Geneva for their second meeting of the year. Business included review of LIS Protocols and procedures and the introduction of the survey evaluation Scanteam team leader Arne Dirsch.

Survey Action Center
Mike Kendellen (Director for Survey) was an observer at the UN Certification Committee meeting in New York for the Cambodia LIS. Saeed Ahmad (Survey Officer) has accepted a position as an Economist with the state of Nebraska. We wish him well.