In late March, Congress passed all 12 spending bills to fund the U.S. government through FY24. The final budget included $258 million for the State Department’s Conventional Weapons Destruction (CWD) program, nearly $21 million more than what the State Department had requested. The CWD account funds HALO’s demining and related programming around the world, as well as almost 50 other U.S. and global demining partners. The U.S. State Department, through the CWD account, is the single largest funder of humanitarian demining worldwide.
The final budget also included an uplift for the Army’s Humanitarian Demining Research and Development (HD R&D) program, which Congress funded at $23.068 million – an increase of $2.068 million above last year’s funding level. The HD R&D program is a critical partnership between the U.S. Army and demining sector that gives both the military and humanitarian demining organizations access to the best, most efficient demining technology.
HALO receives funding from both the CWD and HDRD accounts to perform life-saving work in over 30 countries around the world. In the FY25 appropriations process, HALO will continue to advocate for increased CWD funding to address US legacy ordnance, to provide emergency relief in Ukraine, and where proposed allocations do not match the humanitarian need as well as increased HD R&D funding to make demining safer and more efficient.
Read the final State Department budget here, and final Defense budget here.