The Director of the GICHD, Ambassador Stephan Nellen, recently completed his first official visit to Latin American with a one week trip to Chile and Argentina during the week of November 14th - 20th 2005. This short introduction to the region provided an opportunity for the Director to meet with local mine action programme officials to discuss their concerns and activities and to update them on the services and support available from the GICHD.
A key part of the visit was the opportunity to explore the integration of mine action into the training provided by the UN Peace Keeper training centres developed and locally funded in both Chile and Argentina. The Ambassador was very impressed with the significant effort being made to ensure that troops assigned to international peace keeping operations participate in a well rounded and complete pre-deployment training programme that includes references to mine action. In both programmes significant use of the publications and research work of the GICHD are being incorporated into the programme.
