Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Website: www.gichd.org
The Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) was established in April 1998 at the initiative of Switzerland and several other countries. It supports the continual improvement of mine action performance and relevance. The Centre helps national authorities, organisations and other partners to do their job by better furthering knowledge, promoting norms and standards and developing capacity. It has over 50 staff members and is financially supported by about 20 countries and international organisations. GICHD staff visit around 60 countries per year to provide professional advice and expertise, to deliver training courses, and to conduct research on mine action, information management and risks pertinent to ammunition, explosives and IEDs.
Main activities:
- Providing training and advisory services to mine action authorities and organisations in the management of programmes, operations, information management, and standards
- Participating in and organising international, regional and national conferences
- Conducting technical research
- Facilitating meetings and translation of resources in French, German, Arabic, Russian and Persian to build a multi-lingual, international mine action community
- Producing publications on mine action, explosive weapons and ammunition management
GICHD provides training and advisory services in the following areas:
- Strategic management
- Linking mine action, security and development sectors
- Quality management, monitoring and evaluation
- Operations
- Land release: operational efficiency, survey and clearance
- Mechanical demining and animal detection systems
- Contracting, liability and insurance
- Stockpile destruction, EOD/IEDD and ammunition safety management
- Explosive weapon effects research
- Information management
- Information management capacities development
- Information tool maintenance and development: IMSMA software
- Standards
- Hosting and further developing International Mine Action Standards (IMAS)
- Further developing International Ammunition Technical Guidelines (IATG)
- Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and CCM implementation
- Hosting APMBC and CCM Implementation Support Units (ISU)
- Hosting Geneva Disarmament Platform (GDP)
- Hosting Gender and Mine Action Program (GMAP)
This profile is part of AOAV’s investigation into counter-IED (C-IED) actors around the globe. To see the list of all C-IED actors recorded by AOAV, see here. To see those engaged in the Middle East, the Sahel, North Africa or other highly impacted countries please see here, here, here, and here respectively. This research was made possible by funding from the NATO Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Centre of Excellence (C-IED COE). To read the full report, ‘Addressing the threat posed by IEDs: National, Regional and Global Initiatives’, see here.
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