Is Reintegration Still Worth Doing Eight Years After the Ceasefire?

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.