Procurement Notices

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) based on a per capita is the most heavily bombed country in the world. More than forty years after the end of the 1964-1973 Indochina Conflict, Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) remains a major humanitarian and socioeconomic challenge to the country, causing deaths and injuries, limiting access to potentially productive land, and adding substantial costs to processes of development. The Government of Lao PDR (GoL) has been active in the process of clearance since shortly after the conflict. Lao PDR has advocated for the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) and hosted the first Meeting of States Parties in 2010. It also embraced the UXO issue as a key development matter by locally establishing the Sustainable Development Goal 18 (SDG18), “Lives Safe from UXO”.  

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​The current National Strategic Plan for the UXO Sector in the Lao PDR 2021 - 2030, “The Safe Path Forward III” (SPFIII) details the objectives of the Government and its development partners over the forthcoming period where the aim is to reduce the humanitarian and socio-economic threats posed by UXO.  A focus of the document, approved by the government of Lao PDR in 2022, is the need to ensure strong integration with development mechanisms particularly at a provincial level and to ensure actions are focused on community level priorities for the facilitation of other development activities. 

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​UNDP support to the UXO sector in Lao PDR has focused on two axes, notably: 1) support to strengthening the capacity and technical competency of the National Regulatory Authority (NRA), to be able to oversee and steer the sector in pursuance of national strategic goals and obtaining Lao PDR’s unique UXO Action Sustainable Development Goal, SDG 18: Lives Safe from UXO, and 2) to provide capacity support for survey and clearance, through support to the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme (UXO Lao) and the Humanitarian teams of the Lao People’s Army (Unit 58), thus hastening progress towards clearance in impacted communities.     

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​One key observation from the latest UNDP UXO programme evaluation[1] identified the need to strengthen evidence-based research to determine both a baseline of the impact of UXO contamination on Lao PDR communities, as well as a methodology to determine the impact of clearance and survey, funded by UNDP. Many of the gains of investment by donors to the sector, through UNDP support, were anecdotal with little clear demonstration of evidence measured against a baseline of impact.   

​UNDP needs to be able to demonstrate the impact of both UXO contamination on development targets, as well as how the removal of UXOs hasten the same, as expressed in government’s development strategies and the Laos adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. Demonstrating impact in the sector will not only quantify the relative value of UXO clearance and survey but should also provide linkages of integrated approaches to UXO clearance and rural development, being a key component of the Government’s Safe Path Forward III strategy. Investigation into the impact of UXO contamination and UXO clearance, should also provide feedback and inform practice in the country, in pursuance of continual improvement.