Youth and DDR

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Youth and DDR

• 5.20

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Overview

• Main components of reintegration programs for
  young ex-combatants
• Creating reintegration opportunities for youth
• Gender issues
• Socio-political reintegration
• Beyond DDR

• Introduction
• Root causes of youth participation in armed
  conflicts
• Preventing youth from participation in armed
  conflict
• Youth and security
• Socio-economic reintegration strategies for young
  ex-combatants

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Introduction

• 15 and 24 years of age
• Between the legal categories of children and
  adults
• Have had to grow up quickly and assume adult
  roles
• Reasons why young people join armed forces
• Respond to diverse needs, experiences and
  disadvantages
• Recognize youths resilience, coping strategies
  and distinct experiences

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Root Causes of Youth Participation in Armed
Conflicts

• Look at the context youth are living in
• Family
• Desire for protection
• Anger
• Revenge
• Research studies

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• Ask questions on broad categories
• War and insecurity
• Poverty
• Education
• Family and friends
• Politics and ideology
• Identity
• Culture and tradition

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Preventing Youth From Participation in Armed
Conflict

• Give youth opportunities that are appealing
• Concrete initiatives and strategies for providing
  durable employment opportunities
• Address unemployment and underemployment

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Youth and Security

• Create a secure environment
• Violent youth
• Sub-cultures that promote violence
• Address through
• DDR programmes/broader youth strategies/action
  plans
• DDR programmes/broader employment policies and
  programmes
• DDR programmes and SSR and justice sector reform
  (JSR)
• DDR programmes in neighbouring countries

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• Youth and small arms
• Cheap, small and easy-to-use weapons
• Symbolic value
• Develop programmes that enable youth to
  contribute actively to disarmament and
  reconstruction efforts

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Socio-economic Reintegration Strategies for Young
Ex-combatants

• Youth-focused and socio-economic reintegration
• Matching aspirations with opportunities
• Planning socio-economic reintegration programmes
• Data-collection and labour market information
• Programme design

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Main Components of Reintegration Programs for
Young Ex-combatants

• Catch-up education
• Learning and training
• Employment services, career guidance and
  job-search assistance
• Youth entrepreneurship

• Microfinance for youth
• Business training and business development
  services
• Psychological trauma and tensions

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Creating Reintegration Opportunities for Youth

• Labour-intensive physical and social
  infrastructure development
• Wage incentives
• Competition in the labour market for people with
  little or no experience

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Gender Issues

• Reasons for joining armed programs
• Disarmament and demobilization of girls and young
  women
• Reintegration of girls and young women
• Disarmament and demobilization of young men

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Socio-political Reintegration

• Authority and intergenerational conflicts at the
  community level
• Voice and representation
• Youth and substance abuse
• Youth and HIV/AIDS

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Beyond DDR

• Youth development policies
• National stakeholders
• Coordination and implementation