Foley Hoag has played an instrumental role in helping APOPO, a Brussels-based humanitarian demining organization, secure additional funding from the U.S. State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement to clear mines in post-conflict zones. 

Beginning in 2020, the firm helped APOPO win several State Department grant awards for the organization’s demining initiatives in Zimbabwe’s Sengwe Wildlife Corridor, marking the first time APOPO ever received funding from the U.S. Government. 

In October, the State Department confirmed that APOPO would receive a new multi-year award for $3 million to support the organization’s pioneering use of animals to detect and remove unexploded mines in Cambodia. The grant will fund two technical survey dog teams, one that will search for cluster munitions in eastern Cambodia and another to respond to explosive devices placed during recent armed conflicts at the Cambodia-Thailand border. The State Department will fund the survey dog teams from October 2026 through September 2029.

This latest award is the first time the State Department has funded an APOPO project in Asia. Since 2014, when APOPO started its work in Cambodia, the organization has partnered with the Cambodian Mine Action Committee to release over 33 million square meters of land and safely located and destroyed over 49,000 landmines and other hazardous items in the country. 

APOPO is known worldwide for training African Giant Pouch Rats to sniff out unexploded landmines and has also led the use of GPS-linked dogs to complement its animal detection methods. Combined with this month’s award, APOPO has received over $6 million from the State Department since Foley Hoag began representing the organization. The award comes at a time when the U.S. Government has drastically cut funding to many other international aid initiatives.

Senior Advisor Isa Mirza has led the firm’s work for APOPO, developing a strategic federal government engagement plan for the organization and representing its leadership over the past several years in meetings with senior officials at WRA and senior staff on the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Partner Gare A. Smith – a former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State – provided critical advice regarding engagement with the agency, while corporate Partner Michael Glanz continues to advise the organization’s leadership on legal matters related to cross-border, nonprofit, and tax challenges. 

The team will continue to work with APOPO to support the mine action community’s goal of completely demining Cambodia. Foley Hoag, APOPO, and APOPO’s partners will also work together to advance funding for other heavily mined countries, in particular Angola, the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and Ukraine.

In an effort to advance important humanitarian causes, Foley Hoag’s work for APOPO is being conducted on an entirely pro bono basis. APOPO was referred to the firm by the Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation.