MAT Kosovo and PCM at MINEACT 2025: Contributing to the 21st International Symposium on Mine Action

Again this year, PCM and MAT were honored to contribute to the excellent annual event that is MINEACT 2025, the 21st International Symposium Mine Action 2025.

Last year it was about “women in mine action”, which allowed us to demonstrate how the number of women trained through us has more than doubled every two years, for ten years running. More women deminers means more deminers, quite simply, and the conference — as always — was focused on an important trend. As it was this year, with the topic “Three Years after Full-Scale Invasion On Ukraine: Insights and Lessons Learned”.

Our COO Dr. Karl Strobl, and our Ukraine country-head Iryna Shkatula presented a paper entitled “Matching Training and Operational Needs”, discussing a multitude of strategic decisions one has to make when building and running a training organisation and adapting training to ever-evolving threats and challenges which the beneficiaries are facing in the field. What goes into defining strategic objectives and setting strategic priorities? What are the unique organisational challenges when your focus is training, mentoring, and consulting? Can we learn something about the answers by comparing to other fields than mine action and EOD? Further points of discussion were how national and international standards interact ideally, how to ensure training starts progressively and remains progressive throughout an operator’s entire career, and most importantly: How much should you focus someone’s training on the specifics of their role, the environment, and the threats they will be dealing with? The answers are sometimes less obvious than what meets the eye at first glance.

2025 is also the year when MAT Kosovo celebrates its 25th anniversary, and PCM its 10th. Our narrow focus on training, mentoring, and consulting has allowed us to gain a wealth of experience which we were happy to share with the expert audience of beneficiaries, suppliers, and donors.

As ever, a large part of the value of such conferences is the environment they create for all people in the wider industry to meet and freely exchange ideas and experiences, and in doing so drive the industry forward towards higher productivity and greater excellence. The setting in Cavtat did its part in creating a conducive environment where to meet and brainstorm.

But behind all such efforts are always the people who make it happen. We are very grateful for CTRO for creating this environment, and for Katarina Markt, her entire team, and the Editorial Board for having put together this conference and an outstanding book of papers from the contributors to the conference. Croatia contributes more to funding and research of EOD and mine action globally than many outside the industry may realise, and HCR-CTRO is right at the center of this. For years to come, we look forward to contributing more and working closely with them.