Department of State Issues Request for applications for humanitarian mine action grants

DISAM Journal, Summer, 2004

[The following are excerpts of a media note from Washington, D.C., April 9, 2004.]

The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs is issuing its first ever, open Request for Applications for grants to advance humanitarian mine action.

Grant applications will be accepted from domestic and foreign non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and international organizations in six specified areas. The Department of State is prepared to provide up to $4.2 million dollars in funding support for this process.

The six categories being considered for grant applications in 2004 are:

* Community-based mine risk education in Sudan;

* Strategic planning training course and curriculum development for national mine action plans;

* Development of abandoned ordnance and hazardous ordnance site survey methodology;

* Development of training methodology and curriculum to fully enable host-nation program management capabilities to achieve a mine-safe end state;

* Review of Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement-sponsored indigenous humanitarian mine action capacity-building efforts; and

* Private sector engagement to raise public awareness of and support for humanitarian mine action and destruction of abandoned ordnance.

Grant applications for unsolicited projects may also be submitted. Depending on the quality of the proposals and changes in programming assumptions, the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement reserves the right to make no awards.

Information on the application review, grant award process, how to develop and submit a grant application, suggested grant formats, and related mandatory application forms can be found at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra/c11811.htm on the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement's website.

To learn about the U.S. Department of State's humanitarian mine action programs and small arms and light weapons abatement efforts around the world, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.>

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