The issue of mine/EO contamination in the Republic of Armenia arose after the Artsakh liberation war in 1988-1994.
The humanitarian demining operations have initiated in RA since 2002.
As a result of the cooperation between the State Department of the United States of America and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia, the Humanitarian Demining Center of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia was established, The demining operations were conducted by the engineering troops of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia.
Later, the implementation of humanitarian demining operations in RA was undertaken by "Ronco" specializing in the sphere of demining with the funding of the US government. Since its establishment, the Center had been engaged in surveying, mapping and creating a database for suspected hazardous areas in the Republic of Armenia.
Since 2007, the Center continued conducting demining operations, but they didn’t comply with the international standards. As a result, funds were not provided by the donors, due to which the demining operations were stopped starting from 2009.
The Government of the Republic of Armenia, taking the responsibility of the mine contamination issue, established the "Center for Humanitarian Demining and Expertise" state non-commercial organization ("CHDE" SNCO) by Decree No. 143 of February 17, 2011, for coordinating mine action.
“CHDE” SNCO was appointed as the cooperating authority (acting on behalf of the Government of the RA) of the demining project of the UN Development Program in Armenia by the Decree of the RA Government N1283-A of September 8, 2011, with the aim of promoting international donor support for demining the territory of Armenia.
The Decree of RA Government No. 454 of April 23, 2014 approved the National Mine Action Standards (NMAS), and by Article 2 of the same Decree, CHDE SNCO was recognized as the National Mine Action Authority.