Brussels, 5 July 2010

GRIP’s thirty-first year is marked by major change: Bernard Adam has stepped down as director and handed over the leadership to a new team, consisting of Xavier Zeebroek as director and Luc Mampaey as deputy director.

Bernard Adam is leaving the GRIP leadership but not the organisation and has now become President of its new Executive Committee. He would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your generous support over the past thirty-one years. Without your donations, GRIP would simply not have been able to sustain itself financially and accomplish all the work it has so far been able to carry out.

In addition to these changes, GRIP is also growing: more research, more studies, more international activities and better communication, with a brand new bilingual website. Several of our young trainees have become full-time staff members and have brought new energy and dynamism to GRIP.

Our researchers are doing everything they can to help complete the UN Process towards the implementation of an Arms Trade Treaty. GRIP has argued in favour of such an instrument for several years and highlights the necessity of curbing the number of arms transfers towards “sensitive destinations” and subsequently improve conflict prevention and reduce human rights violations around the world.

Moreover the support we give to developing international initiatives for better regulation of arms brokering, tracing and final destination, considerably help towards the fight against illicit arms proliferation in the world.

GRIP has just issued the results of a small arms proliferation survey, which took place over a twelve-month period in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo on behalf of the UNDP (Development Programme). Together with GRIP and BICC researchers (Bonn International Center for Conversion), fifty Congolese interviewers and analysts were employed in this project to investigate security issues. As security and development are deeply interrelated, this is another example of our support for development efforts in this region.

2010 is a crucial year for relaunching discussions to bring us closer to a nuclear weapons-free world. Researchers in our nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament team analyse and actively support all initiatives towards achieving this aim. These include discussions about the new START Treaty on strategic armaments reduction, the Review Conference on the Non-proliferation Treaty and the future of US tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Europe, particularly in Belgium.

In addition to its work in support of encouraging political decisions, GRIP consistently seeks to fulfil its fundamental mission of providing permanent education. Whilst this objective applies to all our activities and publications, our book collection: Les Livres du GRIP, is a particularly illustrative example of this aim.

GRIP has always targeted a public interested in important international issues. Recently, however, we updated our publication policy, in an effort to reach a wider target audience, through a more accessible and didactic series of books. To help us achieve this aim, we have just signed a new partnership with a dynamic publishing company, André Versaille Éditeur. GRIP will, nonetheless, continue to exclusively publish a series of books that deals with more specialised issues. As we all know, producing quality books requires significant resources: copyright, translating, printing and publishing incur great expense.

All this is done in a spirit of independence, which is one of the great strengths underpinning GRIP’s work. In order to maintain this independence and continue our work, your financial support is vital to us.

Many thanks in advance.

Xavier Zeebroek,
GRIP’s Director

Please make a donation to account number 000-1591282-94 or click here “Support our action”. For each donation of €30 or more, we give out a tax deduction certificate, which allows you to claim up to 55% back from the amount donated.