Causes of the Exodus from Eritrea

In recent years, the world has witnessed an unprecedented flow of people from Eritrea. The exodus, which has picked up momentum is the outcome of several factors that have been accumulating over the years. Relative to its population size, Eritrea has produced the largest flow of refugees/migrants in the world. What is driving people to leave the country in such large numbers? There are multiple causes of the exodus.

• The no-war no-peace situation
• The implementation of indefinite national service
• A harsh political environment
• Major economic difficulties such as mass unemployment
• A lack of future opportunities and prospects for the country’s youth
• The imposition of sanctions
• A blanket asylum provision by host countries

The rejection of the International Court of Arbitration verdict on the border issue by Ethiopia generated a no-war no-peace situation. The peace agreement was supposed to lead to peaceful coexistence between the Eritrea and Ethiopia. This no-war no-peace situation created constant tensions, a fear of an outbreak of war, and occasional engagement between the armies of the two countries along their common border. This means Eritrea has had to put itself in a constant state of high alert. It also compelled the Eritrean governement to extend its national service indefinitely. The majority of capable labour forces in the country are therefore tied to the national service system. Consequently, the economy suffered immensely because of a lack of a sufficient labour force. The youth who are in the national service have to pay a high price. They do not get proper salary; and they are not able to pursue a normal social and working life which could include education, building and supporting family, accumulating wealth, etc.

The political environment has also hardened considerably. The country has been under an undeclared state of emergency since 2000. Gradually, the political climate became more authoritarian and less plural: political opposition was not tolerated; deviant views and political differences were perceived as dangers to national unity, stability and survival. Therefore, dissidence was harshly dealt with. Many ended up in prison accused of betraying or endangering the security of the nation. The economy, which was slowly recovering from the thirty years of independence war, suffered immensely from the two-year border war (1998-2000) between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the no-peace no-war situation. A major part of state budget now goes to military expenses and staggering unemployment overshadows the nation. What was primarily a subsistence economy spiralled down due to a shortage of an able workforce.

The UNSC imposed sanctions further exacerbated the economic difficulties because they discouraged external investment and other bilateral relations with the wider world, particularly the West. The international community’s policy is geared towards isolation in order to force the Eritrean government to change its policy; however it achieved the opposite effect. Eritrea has been described as “hell on earth” and this was used to justify the blanket asylum provided by European governments. This open asylum policy further attracted a greater number of asylum and refugee seekers, even children who are not affected by the national service appeared at the doors of European countries claiming that they were fleeing from national service.

Abdication of Responsibility

The international community, represented by the UN, AU, EU and USA, assumed the responsibility of implementating of the of the EEBC’s verdict which it helped broker. The two-year war between Eritrea and Ethiopia was ended through the signing of the Algiers Agreement in December 2000. The UN AU, EU and USA put down their signatures as witnesses to and guarantors of the agreement. The main provisions of the agreement were:

(i) The establishment of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC). The EEBC consisting of eminent international judges was mandated to demarcate and delineate the border between the two countries. The EEBC was instructed, “The Commission shall not have the power to make decisions ex aequo et bono” (Article 4(2), Algiers Agreement 2000).

(ii) That the verdict be final and binding. With regards to guaranteeing the implementation, the Cessation of Hostility Agreement of June 2000 notes, “The OAU and the United Nations commit themselves to guarantee the respect for this commitment of the two Parties until the determination of the common border on the basis of pertinent colonial treaties and applicable international laws” (Article 14).

This guarantee shall be comprised of measures to be taken by the international community should one or both of the parties violate this commitment, including appropriate measures to be taken under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter by the UN Security Council (Article 14 (a).

The EEBC, per its mandate, issued its verdict on 13 April 2002 where it was stipulated to be implemented within a year, but to date it is still awaiting acceptance by Ethiopia. The verdict awarded the flashpoint of the conflict, the village of Badme, to Eritrea. Upon realising the decision, Ethiopia rejected it, calling it illegal, irresponsible and unjust. When the EEBC concluded its work in 2007 and announced that the border was virtually demarcated and the issue closed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia called it legal nonsense and requested a renegotiation. The witnesses and guarantors, instead of honouring their solemn commitment and invoking Chapter II of the United Nation Charter, opted for appeasement. Indeed, US officials actively and systematically engaged in devising ways of renegotiating the verdict, particularly, Jandyi Frazer, George Bush’s Assistant Secretary of African Affairs, and Suzan Rice, Obama’s ambassador to the UN, who both played an important role in undermining the EEBC verdict.

Eritrea is of the opinion that the border is delineated and demarcated, and therefore feels that Ethiopia should vacate from the Eritrean territories it illegally occupies. The juxtaposing Ethiopian stance is that the border issue can only be settled through bilateral dialogue, a position that declares the EEBC verdict null and void. Ethiopia has violated UNSC resolutions ordering it to implement the verdict without any consequence. This is because the USA tacitly sides with Ethiopia. Following the footsteps of the USA, the UN, AU and EU remain silent on the issue allowing the festering stalemate to continue with all the consequences effecting the people of the two countries and the region as a whole.

The International Community’s Double Standards

Image credit: Wellcome Images/Flickr.

After signing the agreement of cessation of hostility in Algiers, in December 2000, the parties directed their attention to conducting proxy wars. Both governments were actively involved in support of opposition to each other’s government in the hope of weakening or even deposing. In addition, they intervened in neighbouring countries. Somalia became the obvious victim of the proxy war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. While Eritrea ended up supporting Union of Islamic Court (UIC), Ethiopia sided with warlords and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). Finally, Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 and vanquished the UIC. This contributed to the emergence of al-Shabaab , a radical Islamic extremist group operating in Southern Somalia.

Proxy war has become a rule rather than exception in the Horn of Africa. What has also become a rule is the international community (IC), mostly driven by geostrategic interest of the big powers, punishing and rewarding regional actors participating in wars highly selectively. Many scholars have purported that the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict is the epicentre of conflicts in the Horn of Africa. This means settling the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict would go a a long way in helping the larger endeavour to settle all the intricate conflicts in the region. In this respect, it will be in the interests, as well as part of the moral, political and legal obligation, of the IC to address the conflict. There is an obligation the IC to be even-handed, objective, neutral and balanced in treating its members. The reality is, however, that the IC practices double standards and its dealing with Ethiopia and Eritrea is a vivid testimony to this double standard.

Eritrea was accused of supporting al-Shabaab and destabilising the region. But most of the evidence for Eritrea’s involvement ironically originates from Ethiopia. For the last five years, the Somalia-Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), established to check that the sanctions are not violated, has not found any evidence that Eritrea is supporting al-Shabaab, yet the sanctions have not been lifted. As stated, Eritrea supports Ethiopian opposition groups as Ethiopia supports Eritrean opposition groups. Eritrea supported UIC when Ethiopia invaded Somalia. Ethiopia frequently attacks targets inside Eritrea; it openly threatens to depose the Eritrean government, which is against international law. Eritrea violates human rights as does Ethiopia. However, it is only Eritrea that is under UNSC sanctions and being subjected to isolation from the international community. Ethiopia is considered an indispensable ally of the US global war on terror, therefore it is excused of whatever misdeeds. This is a double standard that damages the credibility and integrity of IC, particularly the UN.

Conclusion

The no-war no-peace situation created a serious sense of insecurity, tension and instability in Eritrea. This in turn necessitated the implementation of indefinite national service in order to not only to defend the country from Ethiopian invasion, but also to ensure the economic and social survival of the nation. Tying the able-bodied Eritreans to national service deprives the economy of vital labour force. This curtails development. The conflict with Ethiopia triggered a chain of causal factors affecting the refugee crisis: constant fear of war, indefinite national service, economic stagnation, political hardship, and hopelessness compelling people to flee the country. It is understandable that few would wish to live under such circumstances.

If the international community had honored its responsibility and upheld the implementation of the International Court of Arbitration per its commitment in 2002, the chain of causal factors producing the exodus might have been avoided. By now the relationship between the two countries could have been pacified. It would also meant that the actual international pressure on the Eritrean government would have also been effective, morally defensive and legitimate as opposed to hypocritical. The failure of the international community to put pressure on Ethiopia to implement and uphold the final and binding border verdict affects not only Eritrea, but also the region as a whole and, as the recent development demonstrate, Ethiopia. For Eritreans the current behaviour of the IC is déjà vu, and brings back the ghost they have been trying exoricse for the last seventy years.

Redie Bereketeab is Senior Researcher and Associate Professor at the Nordic Africa Institute.

Far-right terrorism has re-emerged as a serious security issue in the United States. What are is the drivers behind this phenomenon?

The recent violence in Charlottesville Virginia, perpetrated by white supremacists and neo-Nazis that had gathered for a “Unite the Right” rally, has refocused attention on right-wing terrorism in the United States.  During the rally, James Alex Fields Jr., a possible neo-Nazi sympathizer, drove a car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing one person and seriously wounding 19 others.  The car attack has been described by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican and Democratic elected officials alike as an (alleged) act of right-wing domestic terrorism, and the U.S. Justice Department has promised to open an official civil rights investigation of the incident.

What are the macro-causes of domestic right-wing terrorism in the United States?  In a published study, I attempted to address this question by statistically evaluating all identifiable “right-wing” terrorist attacks in the United States for the period 1970 to 2011.  My goal was to try to determine the economic, social and political factors that drive right-wing terrorism.  In the study, terrorism is defined as an act of premeditated political violence perpetrated by nongovernment organizations intended to influence a wider audience.  I identified domestic terrorist incidents as “right-wing” if they were perpetrated by groups or individuals that were motivated by racist, white supremacist, antiabortion and violent, extreme antigovernment ideologies.

It is important to distinguish the events in my analysis from hate crimes, which are spontaneous rather than premeditated or strategically-calculated acts, and from legal, nonviolent far-right political activities.  The groups and individuals in the analysis are outside of mainstream politics in the United States and have deliberately adopted the use of violence to achieve their goals, rather than nonviolent political strategies such as voting, lobbying and forming protest movements.

The drivers of US far-right terrorism

James Alex Fields, Jr., who conducted the Charlottesville car attack. Image credit: Rodney Dunning/Flickr.

It does not seem that right-wing terrorism is driven by economic grievances or distress.  Across the board, socioeconomic factors that are commonly argued to produce resentments that fuel right-wing terrorism were not significant.  For example, right-wing terrorism is not more likely to occur in U.S. states that have a larger percentage of their populations below the poverty line or that have higher levels of unemployment or income inequality.  I specifically examined two economic factors commonly argued by scholars to be associated with the rise of violent right-wing extremism: the structural decline of blue-collar manufacturing and the “Farm Crisis” that took hold of the United States in the 1980s.  Both of these are said to have produced strong resentments that violent right-wing groups exploited to garner recruits, thereby becoming more active and dangerous.  Neither of these factors, however, do a good job predicting when and where right-wing terrorism occurs in the United States.

States that have suffered heavy industrial manufacturing job losses in a given year or a decline in family farms due to foreclosure do not disproportionately experience right-wing terrorism.  The apparent lack of a direct relationship between economic distress in the United States and right-wing terrorism mirrors findings for terrorism writ-large, globally.  Other studies of economically-aggrieved countries or individuals have not found them to be more terrorism-prone.

I also examined a series of social factors.  The propaganda of right-wing extremist groups often mentions immigration, growing ethnic diversity and the decline of white demographic dominance in the United States as motivating threats.  Far-right protestors in Charlottesville illustrated this by chanting “You Will Not Replace Us!” and “Blood and Soil!”  However, I did not find actual racial and ethnic diversity on the ground to be a statistically significant driver of right-wing terrorism.

Nationwide, the increase in the nonwhite population, and the growth of the nonwhite Hispanic or Latino population, in the United States, bears little relation with ebbs and flows of right-wing terrorist attacks.  Similarly, states with rapidly growing nonwhite population were not found to experience more right-wing attacks.  This does not foreclose the possibility that growing ethnic diversity in the U.S. is a driver of right-wing terrorism.  However, it is possible that the perceived rather than actual threat of demographic change and growing diversity fuels violent extremism.  This effect might be better revealed by a study of individual attitudes as drivers of terrorism.

Related to fears among violent right-wing extremists that whites are being “replaced” by nonwhite immigrants and others is the belief among extremists that traditional male roles have been undermined by the empowerment and enhanced personal autonomy of women in contemporary America.  I investigated this by testing two measures of women’s status: the national rate of female participation in the workforce and the rate at which women seek abortions.  Both of these are frequently-used measures of actual women’s empowerment and are also potent political and cultural symbols of women’s equality.  I find both to be associated with a significant increase in right-wing terrorism.

Holding constant other factors such as past experience of right-wing terrorism at the state level, unemployment, income, population, urbanization, size and growth of the economy and region of the country, I found that for each five percent increase in women’s employment nationally, the U.S. states experienced a 50 percent increase in rates of domestic right-wing terrorist attacks.  Similarly, for every increase of 10 medical abortions per 10,000 live births, a state experienced a 24 percent increase in right-wing terrorist attacks.  Of course it is possible that this latter abortion rate finding is simply reflecting abortion clinics being targeted by anti-abortion extremists.  However, when I removed attacks on abortion clinics from the data, the abortion rate in a state still is a statistically significant predictor of terrorism. This suggests that the controversy of abortion itself is a driver of all types of right-wing terrorism.

Figures 1 and 2 help to illustrate these effects.

Figure 1. Impact of Women’s Employment on Right-Wing Terrorism

Figure 2. Impact of Abortion Rates on Right-Wing Terrorism

Finally, I considered some political and policy factors that have been hypothesized to drive right-wing terrorism. There are several schools of thought on the impact that partisan control of government might have on violent right-wing extremism.  One holds that when Republicans win elections and hold public offices, violent far-right extremists increase their activities because they feel emboldened.

The other school argues that Democratic Party control, and policies that Democratic politicians frequently seek to enact such as gun control or enhanced social policies that increase the size of the federal government, antagonizes right-wing extremists, prompting them to strike back by launching terrorist attacks.  I tested for both and found that right-wing terrorist attacks were more common when a Democrat controlled the White House, and increased dramatically after the elections of both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

In fact, Democratic control over the White House increases right-wing attacks by almost 73 percent.  Figure 3 presents the different projected rates of right-wing terrorism under Democratic versus Republican presidencies.  The partisan effect, however, seems limited to national politics.  Partisan control over state government does not significantly affect patterns of right-wing terrorism.

Figure 3. Predicted Right-Wing Terrorism Under Democratic and Republican Presidencies

This particular finding is interesting given the argument that U.S. President Trump has emboldened right-wing extremists through his rhetoric and his policies and policy proposals.  However, the impact of the Trump presidency cannot be assessed by the study as the analysis does not cover terrorism after 2011.  The data I used to conduct the original analysis has not yet been updated through 2017, when Trump assumed office.  It will be critical to retest the role of partisan control over the White House once this data is available.

While who controls the White House is found to affect patterns of right-wing terrorism, the national partisan effect seems to not be linked to specific federal government policies.  Policies such as increases in federal income taxes or the 1994 federal ban on the sale assault weapons – both of which were an anathema for right-wing extremists – are not statistically significant predictors of attacks.

Conclusion

The sum of these findings is that several of the more symbolic factors, such as reaction against the empowerment of women or control over the government by an ideological “enemy,” that are significant drivers of terrorism rather than structural economic factors, demographic change or government polices enacted.  This finding is, perhaps, not so surprising.  On a general level, symbolic issues are frequently important motivators for terrorists world-wide.  Consider, for example, the symbolic importance of cleansing Muslim society from the influence of Western culture for a movement like Boko Haram in Nigeria or reconstructing an imagined Caliphate for the Islamic State (ISIL) movement.  More specific to the phenomenon of right-wing terrorism, the results underscore the potency of the U.S. President as a (singular) symbol of government and political direction of the country as well as the cultural impact of changing women’s statuses.

It is also important to consider that the study is very much a preliminary investigation into the drivers of domestic right-wing terrorism.  The study focused on the most basic structural factors that precipitate right-wing terrorism.  Future research might look beyond structural precipitants to examine factors that facilitate the motivation, planning and execution of right-wing terrorist attacks, such as the role played by social media, hate speech online, etc.

Author’s Note: Graphs of marginal effects of a 5-unit change (Women’s Employment), 10-unit change (Abortion Rates) and 1-unit change (Republican to Democrat) on counts of right-wing terrorist events. In models, state unemployment rate, inequality, population, population growth, urbanization rate, area, gross state product per capita, growth of gross state product per capita, region (Midwest, South, West) and previous year right-wing attacks are controlled for.

James A. Piazza is Liberal Arts Research Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University. Piazza’s research focuses on terrorism, counterterrorism, political violence and intra-state armed conflict. His published work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics,International Organization, Comparative Political Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Public Choice, Journal of Peace Research, Political Psychology, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Political Research Quarterly, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Interactions, Defence and Peace Economics, Southern Economic Journal, Security Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He can be contacted at . His website:  http://polisci.la.psu.edu/people/jap45

For decades, national and international actors have used Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs for combatants as standardized key elements of peace operations, but these programs are not without their problems. 

There is an African expression: “Softly, softly, catchee monkey!” which means that with patience and perseverance obstacles can be overcome. The saying exemplifies the qualities and skillset needed by peacebuilders in the difficult task of reintegrating combatants through Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs. What turns people towards armed mobilization and political violence and how can individuals be steered away from it? These are questions that have vexed governments and international organizations for some time now. Yet nobody seems to have a definite answer to what it takes to reintegrate ex-combatants, insurgents and rebels. What kinds of activities and skills underpin reintegration and more importantly: can they be acquired over time?

DDR and the Changing Context of Conflict

DDR programs are designed and intended to facilitate the transformation of combatants into civilians (see below). The understanding that DDR programs are essential in helping to prevent war’s recurrence in post-conflict situations is at the heart of current international aid practice and the academic literature on peacekeeping and stabilization.

Disarmament is the comprehensive collection, documentation, and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons of ex-combatants and the civilian population.

Demobilization is the formal and controlled discharge of active combatants from armed groups. The first stage involves the processing of combatants in temporary centers. The second stage encompasses a ‘reinsertion’ package.

Reintegration is the process by which ex-combatants return to civilian life and gain sustainable employment and income during the post-conflict recovery period. Reintegration addresses social and economic issues.

DDR programming today is frequently mandated in on-going conflict contexts. There are two major challenges for ensuring the implementation of DDR interventions in these settings:

1. When there is no peace to keep due to on-going hostilities. To this one must add of lack of a political agreement and political buy-in from warring parties. There have been doubts about whether DDR activities will work in such settings (also called non-permissive environments).

2. When ongoing conflicts lack the stability required to facilitate the economic reconstruction needed to provide ex-combatants jobs entering the labor market, raising questions about how to implement effective DDR programs that prevent conflict relapse.

The Scale of DDR

Weapons being burnt during the official launch of the Disarmament, Demobilization, Rehabilitation and Reintegration process in Muramvya, Burundi. Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr.

DDR has grown significantly during the last decades. The first UN effort in Central America demobilized 18,000 fighters in the early 1990s. In recent years, 101,000 combatants were demobilized in Liberia.  150,000 combatants were due to be processed through DDR in South Sudan before the outbreak of the ongoing civil war and this number is expected to double or triple with the implementation of the peace agreement between the warring factions.  According to the UN department of Peacekeeping Operations, in 2013 estimated mandated caseloads for on-going DDR operations in peacekeeping contexts alone were over 400,000. DDR efforts, in other words, seem here to stay as long as conflicts around the world show no sign of abating.

DDR programs comprise a number of elements. They are highly standardized following the introduction in 2006 of the United Nation’s Integrated DDR Standards. Never before have DDR programs been so comprehensive in their scope and areas of competency, comprising an ever expanding field of interventions such as access to land, cash transfers, skills training and job placement.

Despite the abundant literature on lessons to be learned from previous DDR processes there is little evidence that DDR programs actually produce the desired outcomes, and important loopholes and gaps remain; particularly around the mechanisms at stake in successful social and economic reintegration of former combatants.

Very few DDR programs aim to achieve a sustainable reintegration of ex-combatants. Arguably, the aim has been to provide a tangible peace dividend and stabilize the situation in the short term (for instance in Sierra Leone, Liberia, South Sudan, Nepal, just to name a few countries). In other words, the theory and policy of DDR is driven by realist and strategic rationalities: security first.

A dominant assumption underlying academic theory, policy and practice in the field of peacekeeping is the indispensability of DDR in the early transition from war to peace. Indeed, the rather rigid model of DDR that has evolved over the past decade has become part of the orthodoxy of UN peacekeeping, part of a sequencing of programs and activities that UN missions rarely deviate from. In recent years, this orthodoxy has increasingly been questioned, both in terms of the content of the DDR templates along with the outcomes/effectiveness of the intervention and, not least, the very serviceability of the concept to broader processes of peacekeeping. The important questions regarding DDR programs we have to ask ourselves are: Why do we approach these issues the way we do? Is the offer of a DDR program better than no program at all since it is believed that they make a substantial difference to the lives of ex-combatants and community members?

Vocation Skills Training vs Spending

The potential success of a DDR programme depends largely on the type, quality and length of the vocational skills training provided to ex-combatants. In practice, though, the type of training carried out often does not even amount to half of the duration required for a civilian in peace circumstances. In other words, training does not lead to jobs, and it might not even provide access to employment at all. More often than not, training is poorly suited to labour market needs. Furthermore, without capital, the returns on skills training could be low. If the outcomes are that meagre, then why are education and skills training still so central to DDR? For some critical observers, vocational training persists because it is what donors and implementing actors know and are willing to fund, and it therefore involves little risk (the measurement of success is straightforward: the number of graduated trainees). If DDR has been ineffective in facilitating economic reintegration for former combatants, the reason may be that the programs’ approach to the problem is wrong because skills training will not be effective in environments characterized by fragility, conflict and violence. In contrast to the poor results of training and education, recent research has shown that capital-centred DDR activities are among the best performing ones. Capital-centric intervention refers to start-up grants, in-kind capital transfers and cash injections.

In Burundi, for instance, a reinsertion allowance was offered for eighteen months, with the amount depending on rank. A business start-up grant worth about $1200 was also offered. Comparing the results for those who received it with those who did not, researchers found a large reduction in poverty among the former.

This review of DDR experiences suggests that ex-combatants tend to use the cash received wisely to satisfy their immediate needs and that some manage to save and invest. In Liberia cash transfers had a positive impact on local and national security. This is reflected, for example, in the low levels of violence reported in parts of Liberia, where the Danish Refugee Council ran a dollar-a-day program for ex-combatants after the war ended. Injections of capital – cash, capital, livestock – seem to stimulate self-employment and raise long-term earning potential. The main assumption is that these programs are cost-effective and enable ex-combatants to expand their income generating activities.

DDR Bureaucracy and the Promise of Peace

An important assumption of DDR program concerns the special needs of ex-combatants – as opposed to the broader population – for reintegration support in order to leave behind militancy and adopt a civilian life and identity. However, that is not necessarily the case. Ex-combatants are a heterogeneous group, with some of them more at ‘risk’ than others. Some ex-combatants might even share traits with youth at risk of recruitment by radical groups or violent gangs. Programs should be targeted at those at the highest risk of crime, violence, or future insurgency. But increasingly, DDR programs directly target civilians insofar as they have a relation with an ex-combatant (spouses and children), as it is the case in the recently launched DRC reinsertion and reintegration program. This prompts us to ask: are DDR programs faced with a difficult balancing act between equity and security? In other words, is this kind of targeted assistance rewarding violence? The answer seems to be ‘yes’.

Conclusion

DDR programs, rather than being value-free, amount to a normative process of change, with the aim of altering the identity from that of a combatant to a civilian, and from individual dependency on military structures to civilian self-resilience. It is believed that DDR programs are able to facilitate this change. DDR as a technocratic intervention amounts to a belief in the ability to arrive at the optimal answer to any discussion through the application of particular practices. In other words, DDR programs keep the promise that disarmament and reintegration can be achieved by bureaucratic means. Bureaucracies require standardization for efficiency and rationalized training.

Today, however, effective DDR requires greater participation of local populations. DDR activities have still not found ways to adapt and respond to local contexts of armed violence and fragility in sensible, realistic and cost-effective ways.  DDR interventions require locally differentiated analyses rooted in local perceptions and participation, as well as inclusive processes in designing prioritized programs. To be honest: the bulk of the world’s fighters, gang members, insurgents and high risk youth do not want to be reintegrated: but have expectations of physical protection and material support for their own projects. They should have a say in this multimillion dollar enterprise.

Jairo Munive is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. His research focuses on DDR processes in Africa. Previously worked as a consultant for DANIDA, ILO and UNDP. He has published in various journals such as:  the Journal of Agrarian Change, Conflict Security and Development, and Forced Migration Review.