The history of HI is intrinsically linked to the fight against armed violence, whether caused by the presence of anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions or explosive remnants of war or by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons. From the moment it was created in 1982 to assist Cambodian refugee injured by landmines up to the adoption of the Political Declaration against the Bombing of Civilians by 83 States in 2022, HI’s history has been marked by its humanitarian commitment to reducing the impact of conventional weapons and improvised explosive devices on civilian populations.
67,026
civilians were reported killed or injured by explosive weapons in 2024 according to Action on armed violence (AOAV)
72 HEURES
notre temps de réponse
opérationnelle
848,648
persons benefitting from risk education awareness-raising sessions on arms in 2024
2 115 753 m2
land released back to communities in 2024
936,496
people benefited from HI's Armed Violence Reduction actions in 2024
History
HI was created in response to the plight of victims of anti-personnel landmines and other explosive ordnance (EO) on the Thai-Cambodian border in the early 1980s. Subsequently, HI expanded its work from victim assistance to removing the threat posed by mines and other EO from the early 1990s onwards, when UNHCR faced the challenge of organizing the return of Cambodian refugees to heavily contaminated areas. HI was tasked with recruiting, training and deploying the first 90 Cambodian deminers. Over the last 40 years our interventions have expanded from victim assistance to responding to the increasing needs of people in complex environments.
HI is a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 as a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which led to the signing of the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention and has been an active member of the campaign to ban cluster munitions leading to the Convention on Cluster Munition. In 2010, HI launched a new campaign to protect civilians from the bombing and shelling of cities and secure recognition of the devastating humanitarian consequences of these military practices. On 18 November 2022, 83 countries signed a political declaration in Dublin.
Our approach
Thanks to its extensive experience in the world’s most contaminated countries, HI is able to offer a holistic approach that closely combines action against explosive devices and small arms and light weapons with emergency interventions, early recovery and development actions and conflict transformation.
Our aim is to provide appropriate, conflict-sensitive approaches designed to restore people’s security, guide communities towards non-violent methods of conflict resolution
and promote development.
What sets us apart is that we covers all the main pillars of humanitarian mine action - humanitarian demining, victim assistance, risk education and advocacy - while working on the root causes of a conflict.
In the design of projects, we involve local people from the outset to ensure better and more sustainable coverage of their needs.
THREAT ELIMINATION
Removing the immediate threats posed by mines and other EO through land release
BUILDING LOCAL AND STATE CAPACITIES
Building local and state capacities in land release and weapons and ammunitions risk management (WARM)
IMPROVE THE SAFETY
Improving the safety of daily activities for people living in mine/EO affected areas for whom clearance is still a long way off, through increased understanding of the threats, supporting behavioral change towards safe practices and the provision of alternative livelihood options
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Providing technical support on risk education, land clearance, victim assistance through our participation in the International Mine Action Standards Review Board (IMAS)
VICTIM ASSISTANCE
Supporting people injured by mines/EO survivors, other persons with disabilities (PwD), and indirect victims to access services and promote their rights and participation in society
ADVOCACY
Advocating for the universalization of the Anti-personnel Mine Ban Convention (APMBC), Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)
CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
Work with conflict-affected communities to transform conflicts and build more peaceful societies.
What we do
HI is a unique organization with technical expertise in four of the five pillars of mine action: land release and clearance, risk education, victim assistance and advocacy. The fifth pillar of mine action is stockpile destruction, which is States’ responsibility.
HI deals directly with the instruments of war and their impact by:
No development with armed violence and no armed violence reduction without development
The AVR response is built on the acknowledgement that the fundamental root cause of conflict is inequality, including the unequal distribution of resources. HI is very well-placed to operationalize the emergency-development nexus as we are not only an AVR actor, but also in the humanitarian, development and peace-building sectors and thus implements a continuum of services that can be deployed sequentially or in parallel.
Working on this nexus is complex and requires increased internal and external coordination – leading to joint humanitarian-development approaches, directly contributing to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), up to and beyond goal 16 concerning peace and security.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Explosive Ordnance (EO) comprises of air delivered bombs and cluster munitions, landmines, projectiles, mortars, grenades and other explosive devices that fail to detonate as designed. In many countries those pose a significant threat to people's safety and security. They remain volatile and can kill or seriously injure people and animals if touched or moved, even long after the conflict has ended.
Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) is the detection, identification, evaluation, rendering safe, recovery, and final disposal of EO. EOD enables affected populations to safely access and return to their land, homes, schools, services. Through EOD, we seek to further broaden the humanitarian and development objectives.
In line with international standards and depending on the intervention context, HI directly implements activities or supports local teams to carry out non-technical and technical surveys and clearance using different methods and tools, including manual clearance, mechanical assets, animal detection systems, innovative technologies such as drone and ground penetrating radars, and mobile data collection. The area is searched inch by inch to locate, identify and remove all hazards. The areas to be cleared are selected in consultation with the local authorities and communities. Priority is given to areas which play an important role in communities’ socio-economic development (access to hospitals, schools, markets, growing crops, building services or accessing resources – water, soil etc.).
Risk management
Explosive Ordnance Risk Education activities seek to reduce the risk of death and injury posed by weapons, mines and other Explosive Remnants of War (ERW). It involves raising awareness of all members of affected communities according to their different gender, status and exposures to the danger posed by such explosive hazards. In addition, HI promotes behavioural change via information for the general public, community-based risk education and training activities. Our actions aim to support individuals and communities to find suitable and safer alternative solutions to improve their safety and security.
Over the last decade, HI’s approach has been moving away from awareness-raising and delivering basic safety messages towards an approach based on the Humanitarian-Development nexus. In emergency contexts, HI provides awareness-raising messages by means of public information to issue clear warnings to as many people as possible.
In reconstruction, post-conflict and development contexts, HI uses community-based approaches which aim to develop local capacities to raise awareness in order to better manage the residual risk in impacted communities. Thereby, HI has developed tailored communication materials and tools, like a booklet for children or video clips on social media.
Our interventions in risk education and risk prevention activities include
PUBLIC INFORMATION
Public information through mass media
ADAPTATION TO A SPECIFIC CONTEXT
Risk education tailored to a specific context and its at-risk populations through information, education and communication tools
CONTAMINATION IMPACT SURVEYS
Contamination impact surveys to mark threats and prioritise the technical intervention according to the community’s socio-economic needs;
Weapons and Ammunition Risk Management
Weapons and Ammunition Risk Management (WARM) aims to protect communities and individuals from the impact from both unplanned explosion and weapons, and more importantly, small arms and ammunition diversion.
HI WARM interventions contribute to reducing the risk of injury and death due to unexpected explosions, thereby protecting at-risk populations especially when ammunition magazines and armouries are located in populated areas. They also help to build States’ capacities in stockpile management and securing arms and ammunition in fragile environment.
The secure management of national small arms light weapons (SALW) and ammunition stockpiles is instrumental to curbing illicit proliferation. Poor stockpile security is a prime means of diverting arms and ammunition from legal to illegal markets, and inadequate security makes theft easy. Stockpiles have the unique characteristic of needing planning and protection against both external threats and internal failings.
Our work ensures that SALW and ammunition are safe, not obsolete, not excessive and that are well managed and kept safe.
Activities include the training of personnel, ensuring safe storage by designing dedicated equipment, the rehabilitation of armouries or construction of new depots compliant with national and international standards. We also support the marking of SALW to track equipment and avoid misuse and diversion, as well as the destruction of obsolete small arms and weapons.
We work in collaboration with national authorities to support the implementation of their national strategies and action plans.
An obligation
Victim Assistance (VA) is an obligation under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), namely the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, the Convention on Conventional Weapons of War Protocol V and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
Victims are all persons who have been killed or suffered physical or psychological injury, economic loss, social marginalization or substantial impairment of the realization of their rights caused by the use of landmines, and other EO, including cluster munitions and victim-activated Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). Victims include the people killed and injured by these weapons (casualties), as well as affected families and communities (indirect victims). The term ‘survivor’ is used to denote people who have had an a mine/ERW/IED accident and survived.
Our expertise
HI has been providing assistance to victims since the early 1980s.
Our expertise covers a large spectrum of the services required to advance the inclusion of victims at all levels of society. It encompasses the adequate provision of age- and gender-sensitive assistance, including physical and functional rehabilitation and psychosocial support, as well as provisions for the social and economic inclusion of victims of mine/ERW.
The implementation of VA is guided by the human rights principle of non–discrimination, which implies that access to services is determined on the basis of need and not on the basis of the cause of the injury or impairment.
Although victim assistance is a pillar of mine action, is also part of broader sectors: health, education, work & employment including social protection, and social inclusion. HI has expertise in all of these sectors.
HI’s interventions can be divided in five main areas
ACCESS TO SERVICES
Facilitating access to services by establishing a system that links people injured, survivors, other people with disabilities and the families of people killed or injured to services
DEDICATED SERVICES
Providing services for people injured, survivors, other people with disabilities and the families of people injured or killed
CAPACITY BUILDING
Capacity building of national authorities in terms of coordination and action planning on victim assistance, disability, health, education, work & employment, social inclusion, and social protection
ADVOCACY
Advocating for the universalization of the APMB and the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), and the inclusion of victim assistance in the future Political Declaration on Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA)
RESEARCH
Applied research on victim assistance, and collective development of mine/ERW impacted communities
How to implement victim asssitance obligations?
Concrete actions to improve the quality of life of victims and persons with disabilities
Conflict Transformation
HI differs from other organisations working to reduce armed violence in that we integrate conflict transformation activities into our programmes.
Conflict transformation reduces the likelihood of a conflict becoming violent and requiring emergency intervention. It also makes it possible to reduce the scale and duration of an emergency, support the conditions necessary for the safe and voluntary return of populations and create the conditions for a transition to a more stable environment.
Conflict transformation responds to local conflicts with community-based solutions. This approach aims to highlight and then reduce the structural inequalities and systemic violence that are the root causes of violent conflict. By offering awareness-raising sessions on non-violent conflict management, detailed mapping of local mediation mechanisms, participatory risk identification and reduction exercises and training in inclusive governance, HI helps to bring about a lasting transformation in the power dynamics and thus strengthen the resilience of communities to the risks of violent conflict.
The depiction and use of boundaries, geographic names and related data shown on this map are not warranted to be error free nor do they necessarily imply official endorsement or acceptance by HI.
For more information about our projects and our approach to Armed Violence Reduction.
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Photos : © B. Almeras / HI - © O. van den Broeck / HI - © N. Mazars / HI - © W. Daniels
