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U.S. Assistance in Landmine Awareness and Mine Action

Courtesy of Richard Kidd

Richard Kidd Date: Wednesday, 4 April 2007 Time: 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) View Webchat Transcript

April 4 is International Mine Awareness Day, and USINFO is holding a webchat on land mines then to commemorate this fact. On February 27, 2004, the United States announced a significant change in landmine policy to ensure protection for military forces and civilians alike. The policy also furthered U.S. leadership in humanitarian activities that contribute most directly toward eliminating the landmine problem and mitigating its effects on landmine survivors. Please join the U.S. State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement Director Richard Kidd for a online discussion of how the United States is a world leader in helping to reduce the impact of landmines and unexploded ordnances that have been left over from past conflicts.

Guest Biography: Richard Kidd is the director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Political & Military Affairs. Kidd oversees the Department’s efforts to reduce the harmful humanitarian and security threats posed by illicit, indiscriminately used and abandoned conventional weapons of war.

Kidd joined the United Nations (U.N.) in 1993 as an emergency officer, and in that capacity served in a variety of conflict and post-conflict areas, including Tajikistan, Moldova, Rwanda, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He also worked in the headquarters for the World Food Programme and the U.N. High Commission for Refugees to develop and improve each organization’s emergency-response and supply-chain management capabilities. Kidd joined the U.S. Department of State as a foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, and after serving as the Bureau’s Special Assistant for Management and Policy, he was selected to serve in his current position.

Kidd graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1986 and served as an infantry officer until 1991. He has a Masters degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University.