Practice note 4: Socio-Economic Reintegration of Ex-Combatants

In many post-conflict countries, especially in those with a negotiated peace agreement, a process of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) of combatants is put in place, targeted at rebels, militia, paramilitary and other armed groups. While the disarmament and demobilisation parts of the DDR process are relatively straightforward, the socio-economic reintegration of former combatants has proved to be far more complex. Reintegration is a long, difficult process, particularly because it involves “helping ex-combatants to move away from the roles and positions that defined them during the conflict to identifying themselves as citizens and members of the local communities.”1 The other major challenge is their economic reintegration in the often war-torn economy, which is characterised by already high unemployment rates. The ability for an ex-combatant to reintegrate is dependent on many factors,including what motivated (or pressured) them to fight in the first place, what role they played during the conflict and what alternatives are available to them. Failure to successfully complete this last stage of DDR can seriously endanger the overall peace process: the continued presence of unemployed, formerly armed combatants poses a threat to community- and national-level security, and can thereby jeopardise all other efforts at economic recovery as well as peacebuilding. It is therefore vital for policy-makers and practitioners to ensure that the challenges and risks related to socio-economic reintegration of former combatants in countries emerging from conflict are understood and taken into account during the planning and implementation phases of DDR. Economic development programming is a key component of such reintegration efforts, given the challenges of creating jobs, salaried or self-employed, for those who are demobilised. Economic reintegration contains two dimensions: 1. Improving employability: to increase the employability of combatants through intensive training in skills that are actually in demand in local economies and markets, and through longer-term support to new entrepreneurs, for example through mentoring and business support services. 2. Strengthening the enabling environment: to create an enabling economic environment, especially in local communities with high return of excombatants, for job creation and private-sector development, including for micro-businesses. Finally it is crucial to clearly distinguish between the reintegration process, which is an individual and possibly long-term process, and the reintegration programme, with a clear time-span (2-4 years), budget and exit strategy.