Introduction: Reintegration into What?

Abstract

The reintegration of ex-combatants after war has become big business for several international organizations and agencies. The United Nations has a dedicated disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) section within its Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).2 The Secretary-General reported in 2011 that there are four current UN peacekeeping missions with significant DDR mandates (two in Sudan, one in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and one in Côte d’Ivoire), with another recently concluded (Liberia, the subject of a chapter in this book) and a mission in Haiti where the UN has used DDR programming for community violence reduction. Special political missions have also supported DDR efforts in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, and Somalia. By 2011, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) was supporting reintegration efforts in 22 countries and territories, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in nine, and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 15.3 These recent UN efforts combine with the 36 internationally supported DDR processes between 1992 and 2005, 25 of which were in Africa.4