Location: New York, USA
Website: http://www.unicef.org/
Type: International
UNICEF are part of the Inter-Agency Coordination Group on Mine Action (IACG-MA), which comprises UN entities involved in mine action across the globe.
As such an entity UNICEF have been involved with many mine action projects, particularly in regard risk education.
The countries where UNICEF have been involved in for this area of work includes: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nicaragua, North Caucasus (Ingushetia/Chechnya), Occupied Palestinian Territories, Panama, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Golan Heights (Syria) and Vietnam.
Much of this work involves C-IED operations. In regard to C-IED UNICEF’s work predominantly centres around the effects of IEDs on civilians, particularly children, so typically UNICEF’s role in countering IEDs has been through victim assistance and risk education.
UNICEF have been involved in launching campaigns in areas most affected by mines, such as in Ukraine, which has been littered with mines and UXO over the last couple of years, and which pose a great risk to civilians.
UNICEF’s role I this area has also encompassed advocacy, pressuring states to ratify international law, such as the Mine Ban Treaty and encouraging respect for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which mines, UXO and IEDs contravene.
Additionally, they have been involved in lots of research in to the prevalence effects of IEDs on children. Most recently, they have release a report on the use of child suicide bomber by Boko Haram in Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon.
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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