When LCI accepted its first donated dollar, it accepted an awesome responsibility not only to its contributors, but to those people who live daily with the threat of landmines. By proposing to "promote permanent solutions to the economic, environmental, and societal problems caused by landmines and unexploded ordnance," LCI earned itself the obligation to make an irreproachable effort toward that ambitious goal. We believe that such an effort requires that LCI be dedicated to leadership both in the minefields and in surpassing the expectations of its supporters.

We feel that if we purport to train local people in critical areas like landmine clearance, modern medicine, and civil engineering, we are obligated to teach to the highest standard. We must be committed in our field operations never to settle for instructing a merely competent team, but to strive always to train leaders. That professionalism must be taught by example, so LCI's international staff will hold itself to an exacting standard of technical skill and sensitivity to the needs of the communities we serve. Of our local trainees we demand the same dedication. Indigenous mine clearing teams are not just a labor force; they are the cornerstone of the LCI system of broad-based economic rehabilitation, and are therefore just as important to the success of any program as is our international training corps.

It seems self-evident that LCI also has a powerful obligation to its donors. When a supporter chooses to contribute to a local project, we feel that LCI has been contracted to complete that project in the most cost-effective manner possible. It is our responsibility to reward the donor by clearing explosive ordnance and running training programs on budget and on time. If we do our jobs, we hope our supporters will hire us again. We do not believe that our donors are buying good intent; we are selling achievement. Also, we must reward support through transparency in our work and integrity in our accounting. There are objective measures of success in landmine clearance. So, perhaps more than in any other area of charitable giving, LCI owes its donors the opportunity to observe the projects and to know what their money is doing, when, where and why.

For all of those reasons, we make the following pledge:

To those who live in the minefields, we promise that LCI and all of its representatives will treat you with respect and will maintain the highest standards of discipline and integrity. We promise that every person we train will receive the best education we are able to offer and that we will value trainees' safety as we do our own. We promise above all that every facet of our operations will contribute to eliminating the threat of explosive ordnance quickly and permanently.