Even after a conflict ends and the fighters have gone home, the threats from landmines, unexploded ordnance (UXO), and at-risk weapons and munitions remain. These threats foment instability; as long as men, women, and children fear to move about their communities due to the lingering threat of landmines and UXO, a society can never fully heal and rebuild.
The Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM/WRA) works with foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations to deliver programs and services aimed at reducing the harmful effects of at-risk, illicitly proliferated, and indiscriminately used conventional weapons of war worldwide. These programs help remove landmines and UXO from former battlefields, keep weapons and ammunition out of the wrong hands, and aid countries to invest in proper stockpile management and security—including destruction of conventional weapons no longer needed.
These programs play a key role in advancing the U.S. State Department’s core mission of shaping and sustaining a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and fostering the conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of all people.
Since 1993, the United States has provided more than $2.6 billion in assistance in more than 95 countries for CWD programs, delivering the expertise and equipment to secure and destroy at-risk and excess conventional weapons and safely clear mines and UXO. These funds also support mine risk education to prevent accidents, and provide prosthetics, physical rehabilitation services, and vocational training for the injured
