We turn minefields
back into fields.

Watch Afghan land come back to life: surveyed, cleared and handed back by MCPA since 1990.

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Life returns

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When demining began in 1989, mines and explosive remnants of war killed or injured around twenty Afghans every day. Today it is around twenty a month. This is what patient, careful work adds up to:

0 m² Land cleared and released
0 m² Surveyed and re-surveyed
0 Explosive items destroyed
0 People reached with risk education
The national picture

Three decades of mine action, measured

MCPA operates across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan from its head office in Kabul. Every figure below is recorded in the national mine action database and is current to May 2026.

Geographical coverage: 34 provinces, 8 regions

MCPA has delivered mine action in every province and every national mine-action region, from its head office in Kabul. Select a region or a province marker to see the projects delivered there.

Marker size = number of projects delivered in that province

Land cleared and released, by type

Cumulative total: 128,541,993 m².

Cumulative to May 2026, as recorded in the national mine action database. In the same operations, 266,480 explosive items were located and destroyed.

Funding by donor group since 1990

USD 123,151,771 delivered across 105+ projects for 11 donor groups.

Roughly one third of all funding supported survey and data work; two thirds supported clearance. Source: MCPA programme records to May 2026.

The land release principle

Most suspected land is released by evidence, not excavation.

Of the land MCPA has resolved, 178.1M m² was cancelled through survey evidence and released without a single detector, focusing deminers where hazards actually are.

How land is released

From suspected hazard to safe ground

Land release is a disciplined, five-stage process defined by international standards. Scroll through each stage to see how a suspected minefield becomes a working farm.

Non-Technical Survey (NTS)

Everything begins with evidence gathered without touching the ground. Survey teams sit with the women and men who know the land, review historical records and accident data, and inspect suspected hazardous areas visually.

  • Community liaison and structured interviews
  • Review of historical and conflict records
  • Visual inspection of suspected hazardous areas

Where no evidence of contamination exists, land is cancelled and released immediately. Quality NTS stops deminers spending years on land that was never dangerous.

Technical Survey (TS)

Teams now physically investigate the confirmed area with detection equipment. The goal is precision: establish exactly what the threat is and exactly where its boundaries lie, so clearance is focused only where it is truly needed.

  • Metal detectors and targeted investigation lanes
  • Mine detection dogs and mechanical assets
  • Exact contamination boundaries defined and mapped

Clearance Operations

Accredited deminers in protective equipment work lane by lane through the confirmed hazard, supported by mechanical assets and mine detection dogs. Every metre is searched to depth; every mine and item of explosive remnants of war is located and destroyed.

  • Manual demining teams with strict lane discipline
  • Mechanical clearance: excavators and flails on hard ground
  • Mine detection dogs verifying difficult terrain

Quality Assurance

Cleared land is independently inspected before anyone calls it safe. Sampling, documentation and formal certification under the Afghanistan Mine Action Standards make sure that when MCPA says cleared, cleared is what it means.

  • Independent verification of cleared land
  • Post-clearance documentation into the national database

Handover and Community Return

The land is formally returned to its community for homes, farming, grazing and public infrastructure. Post-demining impact assessments follow up to confirm the land is delivering the benefits that made it a priority.

  • Formal handover to community and local authorities
  • Post-demining impact assessment

Most of a suspected hazardous area is typically released by survey rather than clearance. That is the land release principle: evidence first, so the most expensive tool in mine action is used only where it must be.

Explosive ordnance risk education

Protecting people until the land is safe

Clearance takes time. Risk education saves lives now. Nearly 900,000 women, girls, boys and men have learned to recognise, avoid and report explosive hazards through MCPA's EORE programmes.

Phase 1

Community Assessment

Every community faces danger differently. Teams identify who is most at risk and where those risks concentrate.

  • At-risk groups identified: children, returnees, nomadic herders
  • Dangerous areas and daily travel routes mapped
Phase 2

Tailored Messaging

Safety messages only work when they fit the culture and reach people where they already are.

  • Culturally appropriate materials developed with communities
  • Drama and theatre, billboards, radio, school sessions
Phase 3

Direct Engagement

Face-to-face sessions carry the message furthest, in villages, in classrooms, and out to the most remote districts.

  • Community sessions and school-based programmes
  • Mobile teams reaching remote and nomadic communities
Phase 4

Behaviour Change Monitoring

Education only counts if behaviour changes. Teams track incidents and listen to communities to keep improving.

  • Incident reduction tracked over time
  • Community feedback loops shape the next sessions

What safe land makes possible

Contamination is a lock on development. Every square metre released removes it, and the effects reach far beyond the minefield fence.

Lives saved, injuries prevented

888,824 people

Each risk education session, each hazard destroyed, and each marked minefield is an accident that never happens. Nearly 900,000 people now know how to recognise, avoid and report explosive hazards, and 266,480 explosive items have been destroyed.

Land returned to agriculture

128.5M+ m²

Cleared fields go back to wheat, orchards and pasture, restoring food security and family income across all 34 provinces.

Infrastructure enabled

Roads, power, airports

Cleared corridors like the Kabul-Ghazni road reconnect markets, clinics and provinces, and open the ground for power lines and public works.

Education access restored

Schools reopened

Children walk to class without fear when routes and school grounds are verified safe, and risk education keeps them safe on the way.

Economic development unlocked

32,000+ families

Displaced families return to land verified free of explosive hazards and rebuild homes, shops and workshops: recovery from the ground up.

Three decades in the field

MCPA began in December 1989 as the Mine Clearance Planning Cell: two people under UNOCHA, trialling the survey techniques then being introduced in Afghanistan. The trial worked. On 15 March 1990 the cell became an Afghan NGO, contracted to key parts of the UN mine clearance programme with an initial budget of USD 495,000.

From that beginning MCPA grew into one of the founding pillars of Afghan mine action. It pioneered the survey now known worldwide as Non-Technical Survey, developed and maintained the computerised Management Information System that became the national model, and helped build the standards the whole sector still works to. Its teams of surveyors, deminers, dog handlers, risk educators and community liaison officers operate in all 34 provinces, with access to hard-to-reach areas built on community trust.

MCPA is registered with the Ministry of Economy (registration 252) and accredited by the Directorate of Mine Action Coordination (DMAC). All operations follow the Afghanistan Mine Action Standards, aligned with the International Mine Action Standards, with independent quality assurance on every task.

Its expertise has travelled beyond Afghanistan: MCPA conducted the Landmine Impact Survey in Yemen, built a mine action database for Northern Iraq, and is a founding member and coordinating agency of the Afghan Campaign to Ban Landmines.

  • DMAC accredited, AMAS and IMAS compliantRegistered NGO 252, accredited by the Directorate of Mine Action Coordination.
  • Evidence into the national databaseMCPA historically maintained the centralised national database; every recorded hazard still strengthens the picture donors and operators depend on.
  • Inclusive by designGender and age inclusive surveys, mixed liaison teams and child protection referrals.
  • Afghan-led governanceGoverned by a Steering Committee chaired by Abdul Ghani Isalati and directed by Haji Attiqullah, with decades of field management experience.
  1. Dec 1989A two-person survey cell

    The Mine Clearance Planning Cell forms under UNOCHA to trial survey techniques. At the time, mines kill or injure around twenty Afghans every day.

  2. 15 Mar 1990MCPA becomes an Afghan NGO

    Contracted to the UN mine clearance programme with an initial budget of USD 495,000.

  3. 1990sNTS pioneered, national database built

    MCPA's General (Level One) Survey becomes the model for today's Non-Technical Survey, and its Management Information System becomes the national standard.

  4. 2000sExpertise travels abroad

    Landmine Impact Survey in Yemen, a mine action database for Northern Iraq, and the Afghanistan Landmine Impact Survey at home.

  5. 2010-14The largest scale-up

    Funding peaks at more than USD 41 million over five years as access improves across the country.

  6. 2025Shamati handover, Laghman

    3.6M m² cleared and formally handed back; families begin building within days.

  7. Today128.5M+ m² cleared and released

    266,480 explosive items destroyed, 888,824 people reached with risk education, and casualties down from twenty a day to around twenty a month.

From our operations

What we do

Comprehensive mine action, from the first community interview to the day land is handed back.

Comprehensive land release

Non-technical survey, technical survey, minefield clearance, battle area clearance and road clearance as one evidence-driven process, releasing land through proof rather than guesswork.

NTS / TS / Clearance / BAC

Manual and mechanical clearance, including IEDs

Accredited deminers, mechanical demining units and specialist teams clearing minefields, ERW and abandoned improvised mines.

Clearance incl. IED

Mine detection dogs and EOD

Accredited dog and handler teams verify and speed up land release; EOD teams locate, identify and destroy items reported by communities.

MDD / EOD / QRT

Community risk education

EORE tailored to how women, girls, boys and men each encounter danger, delivered in person, in schools and by radio.

EORE

Socioeconomic and impact surveys

Studies of how contamination blocks farming, water, schools and roads, so priorities follow the greatest need.

Impact surveys

Data management, monitoring and capacity building

MCPA built the sector's Management Information System in 1990 and maintained the national database. Today it offers data management, impact monitoring, quality management, hazardous environment training, and capacity building for national mine action actors.

Data / QM / HET / Training

Safe return of families

Supporting displaced families and returnees to come home to land verified safe for living and farming.

Return support

Stories from the field

Case studies from recent MCPA projects, told through the people they were for. Every account below comes from MCPA's own field reports.

Clearance

Shamati (1), Laghman Province · 2025

The village that took its fields back

Sixteen million square metres of explosive contamination surrounded a village of 1,700 people. Two months after handover, families were already building on the cleared land.

Risk education

Mihtarlam, Laghman Province · 2025

A shepherd, a wire, and a phone call

Days after a risk education session for returnee families, one participant spotted a wired device near his grazing sheep and knew exactly what to do.

Survey

Nine provinces · 2024 to 2025

Before the solar panels, the surveyors

A hospital that treats 700 patients a day has electricity four hours each morning. Before solar power could arrive, 540 sites had to be confirmed safe.

Rapid response

Nahrin, Baghlan Province · 2026

The junk shop in Nahrin bazaar

A single call to the national mine action hotline led a quick response team to a crowded market, and to a scrap shop stacked with live ordnance.

Clearance · Shamati (1) village, Mehtarlam district, Laghman Province · Funded by UNOPS and the Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan (STFA)

The village that took its fields back

Shamati (1) sits outside Mehtarlam, the capital of Laghman Province, and is home to about 1,700 people. Years of fighting along a former military corridor left more than 16 million square metres around the village laced with explosive remnants of war. Children and farmers were the most frequent victims, and much of the community's farmland and grazing land was too dangerous to use. The Directorate of Mine Action Coordination and local authorities made the village a top clearance priority.

In May 2025, six MCPA manual clearance teams arrived, working alongside a risk education team and a quick response team. Priorities were set with the community itself: the paths people walk every day, the farm plots, the ground around the schools, and the local stone mine that many households depend on for income.

The project changed lives before the clearance was even finished. On 1 July 2025, during a risk education session in the nearby village of Aakhunzada, a local man named Abdul Samad stood up. He thanked the team, then told them about two suspected devices in his community and asked for help. The quick response team deployed the same day, found rockets and artillery shells, and destroyed them safely.

By the handover ceremony on 12 July 2025, the teams had cleared 3,629,415 square metres and destroyed 1,678 explosive items, verified by external monitors from DMAC, UNMAS, MATC, ANDMA and the provincial Department of Economy. Risk education had reached 4,501 people, including 863 women and 2,694 children, and 137 village-level assessments had mapped the risks that remain.

Within days of handover, residents began building and farming on the released land. The stone mine went back to work. That is what land release means: not just the absence of danger, but the return of a living.

Cleared: 3.63M m² ERW destroyed: 1,678 People educated: 4,501 Villages assessed: 137

Risk education · Mihtarlam, Qarghayi and Surkhrod districts · Funded through the STFA initiative

A shepherd, a wire, and a phone call

Large numbers of Afghan families are returning from Pakistan and Iran after decades away. Many come back to land they no longer know, unaware of what the years of conflict left in it. The danger is not abstract: between January 2024 and June 2025, the Mine Action Programme of Afghanistan recorded 842 accidents, more than 46 every month, with children the most frequent victims.

In Tirgarai village near Mihtarlam, MCPA teams ran risk education sessions for returnee families, women among them. An elderly man, recently resettled from Pakistan, followed the illustrated posters closely and asked question after question. His children, he explained, had never been taught what unexploded ordnance looks like.

A few days later, another participant, Mohammad Amin, walked into MCPA's site office. Out grazing his sheep, he had noticed what looked like a picnic gas canister, then saw a wire running from it. He remembered the session, kept his distance, and called the hotline. MCPA's quick response team deployed, confirmed an explosive device, and neutralised it. Then the team went back to the community, explained what had happened, and ran a refresher session on the spot.

The same project also carries a harder truth. The team had confirmed the village of Badpash Bar Kala clear of explosive remnants in May 2025. Weeks later, floods washed a hidden device down from the hills. Two children found it and began to play. A local man, Abdul Ghafar, ran to them, took the device from their hands and tried to carry it to safety. It detonated, and he was killed. He saved both children, and left behind a wife and children of his own.

His sacrifice is why this work does not end. Ground shifts, floods move what war buried, and every returning family needs to know what he knew too late to be told.

Districts reached: 3 Devices reported and destroyed: via hotline National accidents Jan 2024 to Jun 2025: 842

Survey · Nine provinces, July 2024 to July 2025 · UNDP-funded, under the SESEHA initiative

Before the solar panels, the surveyors

The Central Hospital of Rustaq district in Takhar Province has 75 beds, 40 doctors, and a catchment of more than 400,000 people. It treats about 700 patients a day, and it has mains electricity from eight in the morning until noon. After that, surgery runs on generators. In Beshkand village, the principal of the Bibi Aisha Sediqa girls' school described the same problem: no reliable power for lighting, labs or administration.

The Sustainable Energy Services for Education and Health in Afghanistan (SESEHA) initiative plans to fix this with solar power at 540 schools, hospitals and clinics. But in Afghanistan, no one digs a foundation or trenches a cable until the ground is known to be safe. So before the engineers, UNDP sent for the surveyors.

Over a year, MCPA non-technical survey teams visited every one of the 540 sites across nine provinces, interviewing staff, elders and residents, reviewing records, and inspecting the ground around each facility. The reason for the caution is written in the lives of the people they met. In a ward of the Rustaq hospital, a mother recovering from surgery told the team how her family, displaced from Kunduz, had lived among ruins where ordnance lay in the open. Her young son once carried an unexploded device to a scrap collector; the explosion killed her husband, three neighbours and the collector. Her son survived. Clearance teams later removed mortar shells from where her family lived.

By July 2025, 431 sites had been confirmed safe within a one-kilometre radius and approved for solar installation, and one contaminated site had been reported to the Directorate of Mine Action Coordination for clearance. The work was overseen by UNDP, MATC, DMAC, ANDMA and provincial authorities.

When the panels go up and the operating theatres stay lit past noon, it will be because the ground was proven safe first.

Sites surveyed: 540 Confirmed safe: 431 Provinces: 9 Hazards reported for clearance: 1

Rapid response · Nahrin district, Baghlan Province, April 2026 · UNDP/STFA funded (ABADEI 2.0, PAIDAAR)

The junk shop in Nahrin bazaar

The road from Baghlani Jadid to Nahrin still carries the marks of old wars: ruined checkpoints, walls pocked by bullets. In April 2026, a resident of Nahrin district called the national mine action emergency hotline with a worrying report. Explosive ordnance, he said, was being stored in a junk shop in the district market.

MCPA's quick response team MCPA-QRT-01, working under the UNDP-funded ABADEI 2.0 programme, mobilised at once. After briefing district security officials, the team walked into the crowded bazaar. At the shop, the owner, Mr. Qamaruddin, working beside his son, showed them two unexploded shells. He believed that was the whole matter.

The team's experience said otherwise. Searching carefully through the piles of rusting metal and scrap, they found dozens of explosive items stacked among the goods, any one of which could have detonated if handled carelessly. A few metres away, shoppers moved through the market as they did every day, with no idea what sat behind the shop front.

Working with district security forces, the team removed every item and destroyed them safely, then ran a risk education session for the shopkeepers and junk collectors of the bazaar, the people most likely to encounter ordnance in their trade.

That evening the market looked exactly as it had in the morning: children playing, traders selling. Nothing happened in Nahrin bazaar that day. In rapid response work, nothing happening is the whole point.

Hotline reports: 1 Explosive items removed: dozens, all destroyed Casualties: 0

News and updates

Mechanical demining units working during a clearance operation
Clearance

Clearance teams complete high-risk stretch of the Kabul-Ghazni road

AIM teams, supported by a mechanical demining unit excavator, finish clearing a contaminated corridor on one of Afghanistan's most important roads.

MCPA team at work in Daman district, Kandahar
Community

Survey teams complete community interviews across Daykundi

Non-technical survey teams sit with village elders, farmers and herders to map suspected hazardous areas and set clearance priorities together.

An explosive ordnance risk education session for women
EORE

Risk education reach approaches 900,000 people

MCPA's explosive ordnance risk education has now reached 888,824 people through direct sessions and wider-reach delivery, tailored to children, returnees and nomadic communities.

Cleared land back in productive use in Tani district, Khost
Partnerships

35 years of partnership with the United Nations

Since 1990, MCPA has delivered UN-supported survey, clearance and risk education programmes across every province of Afghanistan.

Partners and donors

Three decades of accountable stewardship of donor funds. Hover or focus a partner for details.

UNMAS and the UN system A UN mine action partner since 1990, including Voluntary Trust Fund and DFID-supported programmes delivered through UNMAS and OCHA.
UNDP Facility safety surveys under SESEHA and community mine action under ABADEI 2.0.
UNOPS · STFA Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan demining and risk education projects, including Laghman, 2025.
US Department of State Programmes funded through the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA).
World Bank Projects linking mine action to reconstruction and development.
European Union European support for humanitarian mine action in Afghanistan.
Government of Japan Japanese support for survey, clearance and community programmes.
Germany German funding for humanitarian demining operations.
Government of Canada Canadian (CIDA) funding for humanitarian demining and risk education.
Government of Australia Australian (AusAID) support for mine action programmes.

Join us in building safe communities

Whether you are a donor, a partner organisation or a community representative, we would like to hear from you.

Telephone076 437 4045
Head officeHouse #02, Street 15, Ward 06, Kart-e-3, near Isteqlal Hospital, Darulaman Road, Kabul, Afghanistan
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Grievance Management System

Anyone affected by MCPA's work, including community members, beneficiaries and staff, can raise a concern or complaint. Submissions may be made anonymously and are treated in confidence.

  1. SubmitUse this form, or write directly to info@mcpa.org.af. Your name and contact details are optional.
  2. ReviewEvery grievance is registered and reviewed by MCPA management, independently of the team concerned.
  3. RespondIf you provide contact details, you will receive a response on the outcome and any action taken.

Raising a grievance will never affect your access to MCPA services, clearance or risk education.

Please describe your concern so we can act on it.

Thank you. Your email client will open with your grievance addressed to info@mcpa.org.af.