State Management Structure for Mine Actions

The development of a comprehensive mine action policy in Ukraine requires the creation of an effective state administration structure. The large scale of the territories of Ukraine contaminated with explosives, the clearance of which must be ensured by the state, requires the search for innovative approaches that will make it possible to solve the problem. To date, the existing mine action structure of Ukraine is unable to respond effectively to the scale and urgency of mine threats. In the field of mine action, there is duplication of functions between state authorities, formulation of inconsistent tasks, parallel functioning of two advisory authorities with overlapping mandates, and lack of proper integration between information systems and state registers. This not only results in additional expenditures for the state budget but also significantly undermines economic security because of the inability to promptly and effectively carry out large-scale work to clear agricultural lands. The purpose of this study is to design an effective state management structure for mine action on the basis of a systems approach. By applying the methodology for designing organizational structures, which involves grouping system elements according to universal functions and dividing the system into a control and managed subsystem with the allocation of the main, auxiliary and service productions in the latter, a state management structure of mine action has been developed. To design the above structure, different types of mine action, combat, operational and humanitarian,were distinguished, which made it possible to qualitatively determine the place, role and functional purpose of any state authority that is directly involved in the sphere of mine action at present or may be involved in the future. Functional ordering also involves defining “types of work” provided for by the so-called “technological process” in regard to elements of the production level system and “tasks” in regard to elements of the state authority level system. Thus, the developed management structure for combat, operational and humanitarian demining is fully manageable and excludes any duplication of functions or inconsistency of tasks. This is achieved through high-quality regulation of the activities of state authorities and other legal entities of various forms of ownership, whose work is directly or indirectly related to mine action in Ukraine.