Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration in Africa

The proliferation of UN peacekeeping operations coincides with an increase in UN-led programs to disarm and disband warring parties, as well as reintegrate ex-combatants into civilian life. “Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration,” or DDR programs as they are known to practitioners, have featured in post-conflict reconstruction from Afghanistan to Haiti. But the bulk of DDR interventions—twenty-four since 1992—have occurred in Africa. The failure of early DDR programs in Somalia and Liberia, partly attributed to their vague mandates, prompted a shift in recent years toward more focused interventions, now codified in a new set of policy guidelines developed in 2005. Newer DDR programs in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have disarmed hundreds of thousands of combatants, but experts say these programs remain poorly funded, and a lack of research has prevented practitioners from developing better reintegration programs.