Support to the Burundi Commission for DDR
The Assistance to the Reintegration of Ex-Combatants-Revenue Generation Activity Track project was signed by AECOM (as PADCO) and the Executive Secretariat of Burundi's National Commission for the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration of Ex-Combatants (CNDRR) in September 2006. Funding for CNDRR's activities comes from IDA and World Bank grants that are administered through the World Bank's Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program (MDRP, http://www.mdrp.org/index.htm).
The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the harmonious reintegration of Burundi's ex-combatants to their home communities through the development of sustainable and profitable income-generating projects. Specifically, the program:
- assists the ex-combatants in the conceptualization and planning of income-generation activities;
- provides training specific to their selected activity, particularly in the areas of activity organization and financial management;
- delivers materials and supplies to facilitate activity start-up; and
- counsels ex-combatants in the implementation of their projects.
AECOM's responsibilities focus on southern Burundi, including Bujumbura District, Rural Bujumbura, Bururi, Makamba, and Rutana. Over two years, the project will directly interact with more than 4,100 former fighters, all of whom have indicated a preference for acquiring skills that will position them to operate successfully in a peacetime economy. The CNDRR and the MDRP designed the overall reintegration effort in Burundi to provide the equivalent of approximately $600 of in-kind grants assistance to each demobilized soldier engaged in the program.
This assistance methodology encouraged the former fighters to join together to form associations or guilds through which they could collectively increase the buying power of their individual assistance allotments. Working together for a common goal reduced the long-standing ethnic and regional tensions that contributed to Burundi's civil war and is now creating the needed stability for the fledgling national government.
