Is Reintegration Still Worth Doing Eight Years After the Ceasefire? : Situational Analysis of Ex-Combatants in the Pool Region, Republic of Congo
Although official warfare in the Republic of Congo stopped more than eight years ago, the pool region has continued to feel the collateral effects of war until now at a scale largely ignored by the general public. The pool region is where the Ninja...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/701191468032676159/Is-reintegration-still-worth-doing-eight-years-after-the-ceasefire-Situational-analysis-of-ex-combatants-in-the-pool-region-Republic-of-Congo http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27325 |
| Summary: | Although official warfare in the
Republic of Congo stopped more than eight years ago, the
pool region has continued to feel the collateral effects of
war until now at a scale largely ignored by the general
public. The pool region is where the Ninjas, a group of
local militias, originated during the civil strife and
retreated to afterwards. Peace and recovery did not gain
traction in the area until 2010/11. Key findings of this
analysis of the disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration (DDR) process include: The lack of a public
security presence: the pool region has largely been deprived
of public security forces over the past thirteen years
(1998-2010), which led to power abuse. Until recently,
several Ninja bases remained throughout the pool region, led
by free-riding commanders operating independently of any
official Ninja structure. The recognition of intra-regional
disparity: warfare affected localities very differently.
While the southern districts have been calm for the past
eight years, abuse was regularly reported along the railroad
prior to 2011. The economic situation of ex-combatants:
There have been many self-demobilizations in the past
decade, and many ex-combatants have already learned to cope.
The heterogeneity of ex-combatants: ex-combatants do not
constitute a homogeneous group. Therefore, their
reintegration needs differ. The consulting team developed a
typology to help understand the profiles of all
ex-combatants. Non-targeted assistance: the consulting team
recommends pairing recent governmental disarmament
operations with community driven reconstruction programming
to provide closure to the population affected by the war.
The main focus of programming should be to reenergize local
economies destroyed by the war, especially medium-scale
agriculture and animal husbandry, and to open up the region
to development. The objective of this study was to analyze
the extent of reintegration of ex-combatants in the pool
region and to formulate recommendations for potential future action. |
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