TOKYO - With landmines remaining a threat around the world, Japan and Cambodia, which have a decades-old partnership on demining operations, have been expanding their efforts to share their expertise with other countries, including Ukraine.
With Japan's support, the Cambodian Mine Action Centre has been providing training to Ukrainian officials since January 2023 in areas such as the operation and maintenance of landmine detectors and mechanical demining equipment.
Ukraine is massively contaminated with landmines and other unexploded or abandoned ordnance from the armed conflict with Russia that began in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea and developed into a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.
Training has been provided on seven occasions to a cumulative total of 60 officials from Ukraine.
Deputy ministers from Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture have also visited Cambodia, with the Japan International Cooperation Agency's support, to learn from the Phnom Penh-based organization's decades of experience in managing large-scale mine action programs.
Such training is now part of the Japan-Cambodia Landmine Initiative, launched by the Japanese government in 2024 to expand cooperation in sharing mine action expertise with third countries, using Cambodia as a training hub, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said.
Overall, about 800 government officials from 11 countries, including Vietnam and Iraq, have participated in the programs, according to the Tokyo-based agency.
Japan and Cambodia's tie-up on mine clearance goes back almost three decades.
Cambodia has been plagued by landmines left behind after more than two decades of conflict beginning in the 1970s. The center was established in 1992 and Japan has been supporting its work since 1998 through JICA and the Foreign Ministry by providing demining equipment, technical advisers and organizational expertise.
"Since surveying and clearance of landmines takes time, long-term efforts are needed," said JICA senior advisor Eri Komukai. "That's why we focused on enhancing Cambodia's national capacity so they can tackle the issue sustainably."
As expertise matured, Cambodia and Japan began reaching out to other countries, launching a training program for Colombia in 2010. Since then, they have been jointly implementing humanitarian mine action for many other countries, with training programs tailored to the needs of each participant nation.
As of June, the Cambodian organization has cleared over 3,700 square kilometers of contaminated land in Cambodia -- one of the largest landmine-cleared areas in the world -- allowing for the emergence of public facilities, farmland and other infrastructure.
CMAC Director General Heng Ratana said, "The benefits from this cooperation lie not only in saving civilian lives but also in socio-economic rebuilding after the war."
Expressing his hope to support other countries' journey toward recovery, Ratana said he wants to "share the strong experience and knowledge we have built up over 30 years."
Komukai explained that Cambodia, itself a victim, brings a uniquely compelling perspective to mine action -- one that donor countries simply cannot offer.
CMAC's strength "lies in its ability to convey the growth process of how (Cambodia) overcame its negative legacy and worked to build a peaceful society, which is what other countries are most eager to learn about," she said.
The experience of third-country training programs has been shared at international conferences, such as the Ukraine Mine Action Conference in Tokyo in October 2025. Meanwhile, the Cambodian and Japanese organizations have recently received training requests from East Timor and several African countries, among other nations.
A U.N. report released in June said at least 58 states and territories were contaminated with anti-personnel mines in 2025 and that countries continue to stockpile millions of such mines.
In addition, according to the most recent available numbers cited in the report, there were at least 6,279 casualties from landmines and explosive remnants of war in 2024, with Myanmar, Syria and Afghanistan logging the highest casualty rates. It was the highest toll since 2020.
Amid ongoing global conflicts, mine action is facing a challenging phase, characterized by cuts in donor funding, renewed contamination, withdrawals by five European nations bordering or close to Russia from a 1997 anti-personnel mine ban treaty following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, and the increasing use of high-tech landmines.
Despite such circumstances, Komukai emphasized that the commitment of JICA and CMAC to keep people safe will remain unchanged.
"We need to collectively work together with countries around the world. Only by strengthening our cooperation can we restore hope and a better future for the affected communities," Ratana said.
