Yep, Stu just retired last week. Dennis is still the man. Marcus is a good guy, I think he's going to be a great addition to that office. I'm doing my office call with Stu's replacement later this week.

Who are you working for in Estonia? My advice in dealing with this would be to get buy in with whatever UN offices are on the ground there (probaly UNDP?). There seems to be a bit sharper leadership in UNDP Mine Action these days, and John Flanagan is still the number 2 at UNMAS, so I can just ask him who's the power-that-is in Estonia for this stuff. Since you've been around this, you know how this stuff is different from one country to the next, depending upon which UN agency has the lead, and the quality of the people leading it.

I have heard that there has been a person above the UNICEF mine action office/NYC in the chain-of-command there who is not a big mine action supporter - one of those who view mine action as a distractor (when approached as a seperate sector/cluster as opposed to being integrated with the "traditional" sectors/clusters). I'll call the number 2 at UNICEF mine action and find out what they know about this, and if they can do anything.

Do you have a concept paper or outline that I can review and send on to them?

Cheers,

Joe

P. S. I'm still by visiting with somone or another at the RONCO offices in Washington about once a month. Now that Larry S. is gone, the guy I'm tightest with is probably Mike H. in Baghdad.