Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

Photo: UN Photo/Steen Johansen

The signing of a peace agreement in a country affected by violent conflict marks the beginning of a sensitive transitional period from war to peace. This commonly entails the dismantling of armed groups, the collection and destruction of illegal weapons, and projects aimed at helping former combatants reintegrate into civilian life, for example through support to find housing and employment or reuniting with missing family members.

Programmes for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants form an important part of efforts to rebuild war-torn societies.

Peace treaties often include an agreement on the creation and design of a DDR programme. An external, international actor such as the UN is commonly tasked with implementing or overseeing such a programme.

A successful DDR process helps reduce the risk of ex-combatants taking up arms again, and thus reduces the risk of renewed armed conflict.

What does the FBA do?

Training and advice
FBA offers training and advice on DDR. For example, FBA has given advice on DDR to the parties of the peace process in Colombia. FBA also played an important role in the creation of the UN guidelines for DDR in 2006, and is now supporting the UN’s work to update the guidelines.
Research
FBA conducts and supports international research on DDR.
Secondments
FBA seconds personnel working within the field of DDR to international peace operations that Sweden contributes to, led by the EU, UN and OSCE. Click here to see a map of where our personnel is currently deployed.
Our partner countries
Within the framework of Sweden’s international development aid, FBA carries out projects concerning DDR. Click here to read more.

Support to civil society
FBA grants yearly funds to Swedish civil society organizations working to promote dialogue and debate and to spread knowledge about peace and security related issues, for example issues concerning disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants.

FBA at the Almedalen Week 2019

During this year’s Almedalen Week in Visby, Sweden, FBA organized a series of seminars with relevance to peace, security and development.

2019-06-25 15:29

IN THE FIELD

Catalina Perdomo Rodriguez

Gender adviser in the DRC

Johan Chytraeus

Monitoring officer in Ukraine

Karolina Riedel

Statistician in election observation missions

Adam Bergman

Adviser to the UN in Nigeria

Mimmi Milligan

Reintegration adviser in Geneva

Björn Tedeman

Election observer

Julia Kempny

Political adviser in Somalia

Read our publications

Young Liberians Building Peace

This publication compiles lessons learnt from the first Conflict Prevention Leadership Program in Liberia, carried out by FBA and Liberian partners in 2018.

Documents

Young Liberians Building Peace.pdf

More Publications

THE FBA BLOG

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Posted by Susanna Rudehill
Are we making the link between peace and gender equality in Mali?

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We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. This groundbreaking resolution was unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council, the highest decision-making body on international peace and security, in 2000. It recognizes the specific needs of women and girls in crisis situations and the key role women can play for peace in their countries.

The resolution is based on the simple conclusion that peace is not possible without the involvement of ... Read entire post »
2019-06-13 14:44
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Posted by Anna Möller-Loswick
“If men are better mediators, why is there always chaos in our countries?”

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At the beginning of May, I arrived in Oslo to attend this year’s annual meeting for the Nordic Women Mediators Network (NWM). The NWM consists of five Nordic networks of women with significant experience and expertise relevant to conflict mediation, peacebuilding and negotiations. The NWM meets at least once a year to share experiences and explore avenues for collaboration to promote women’s role in peace processes.

This year, the Norwegian network hosted the annual NWM meeting, which ... Read entire post »
2019-06-05 10:26
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Posted by Juliana Huus
In Liberia, security is everybody’s business

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According to the FBA’s definition, security sector reform (SSR) is a concept that frames technical reforms within a political process.

I think back two weeks to when I was in Liberia, reciting the for me now very familiar but abstract above sentence. The participants in the room, 16 program officers from the Liberian National Security Council Secretariat, were repeating this sentence with me in unison.

For the past four days, we had tried to unpack this sentence in ... Read entire post »
2019-05-09 16:04