 Good morning, good afternoon everybody. My name is Doc Darstory and I'm the Executive Director of the Resolve Network and a Senior Expert for the Programme on the Viextremes of at the United States Institute of Peace. I'd like to welcome everyone to the first event in the 7th Annual Resolve Global Forum Series and stay a bit about Resolve's work and introduce today's event. For those of you who are new to Resolve, the Resolve Network is a global consortium of researchers, research organisations, policy makers and practitioners, health and USIP. Resolve has committed to better research, informed practice and improved policy on vixtremism. Our research initiatives which span thematic and geographical areas include commissioned original research, capacity building efforts and convenings to provide key insights on specific aspects of vixtremism, batterying vixtremism, research, policy and practice. For more of our work please visit our website and followers on Twitter. Today's event discusses questions and themes that emerged from Resolve's long-running community-based armed groups project or CBACS for short. Conducted in partnership with USAID's Africa Bureau's Office of Sustainable Development. We're very grateful for their continued support and funding on this important topic which has enabled us to conduct extensive research including multiple field search case studies across Sub-Saharan Africa. CBACS often emerge in fragile or conflict affected regions where official security actors are perceived as problematic or ineffective providing their own brand of justice and security with varying degrees of popular support. Our research has explored the types and forms of CBACS as well as examining the factors that drive their creation and evolution in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through the field work and case studies that we've commissioned we investigated the role that CBACS play in the complex conflict ecosystems in which they exist and seen how they are key actors in local peace and security which can have both positive and negative implications. So the more we apply the gender lens and research women's engagements with CBACS including their roles and motivations. However as we reach the end phase of this project we seek to explore the roots out of violence for CBACS and their members. Whilst in recent years we've seen many programs aimed at disengaging violent extremists helping them to reconcile their communities however there's been much less attention given to how former members exit CBACS. What we wanted to ask in today's event is are such disengagement and reconciliation programs suitable for CBACS is so what lessons can we learn and how might they differ. Before we start some general housekeeping the event will start off with some brief presentations followed by a moderated discussion before providing an opportunity for you, the audience, to ask your own questions through a moderated Q&A. We encourage you to ask questions to the speakers you can submit your questions on the USAP event page where you're watching this webcast or on USAP's YouTube or on Twitter using the hashtag Result Forum. This session's moderator will incorporate some of the questions into the broader conversation with the speakers. As a reminder this event is on the record and will be available on USAP's YouTube afterwards. Without much further ado I'm honored to introduce today's moderator Dr Mary Bairf Altia, Research Advisory Council and a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University's Center for Global Affairs where she directs the master's degree concentration on transnational security and the initiative on emerging threats. She has over 10 years experience researching disengagement and re-engagement of vine extremists and has recently published a review of the lessons from 30 years of literature with the Resolve Network. Before handing over to Mary Bairf, on behalf of the USAP and Resolve, thank you again. We look forward to a insightful conversation. Thank you Alistair. Good morning everyone. I'm delighted to be here with two incredible experts to discuss whether what we know about disengagement and reconciliation approaches for violent extremists and ex-combatants in the context of DDR would apply to community-based armed groups or what we call C-bags. So before we begin I just want to introduce our panelists. So first we have Kamina Dialo. She's an expert on gender and international security and a PhD candidate at St. C's Poe where she received her undergraduate degree in international affairs. Ms. Dialo was a consultant at Deloitte for the public sector in Africa before joining a transnational research team based in Dakar working on the bureaucratic bureaucraticization of African societies. In 2020 she worked for the United Nations on the theme of gender mainstreaming on the 20th anniversary of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda. She has published several articles and studies on women in the security sector in Côte d'Ivoire and on the impacts of post-crisis programs on avorean ex-combatants, the subject of her doctoral thesis. I'm also excited to introduce you to Lauren Van Meter. She is the director of Peace, Climate, and Democratic Resilience at the National Democratic Institute. She's a peace and security expert having worked on major diplomatic initiatives and peace and conflict resolution processes at the Pentagon, the State Department, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Atlantic Council. She joined NDI in 2018 and in 2022 was asked to lead the Institute's Peace, Climate, and Democratic Resilience Division, which will develop innovative democracy and governance approaches to some of democracy's major challenges. Dr. Van Meter is a leading expert on community and democratic resilience, having conducted research and led field initiatives on building the strength and capacity of communities and governments to resist different forms of shock such as violent extremism, hybrid warfare, and environmental degradation. All right, so I wanted to begin with Lauren. Lauren, the Formal Seabags Project, which was launched in 2018, as Alistair mentioned, is coming to a close. Can you tell the audience a little bit about the background of this project, the motivations for it, and exactly what a community-based armed group is? So, how does that extremist organization or ex-combatants in the context of civil war? Thank you, Mary Beth, and thank you to the result team. It's really been a privilege to have been a part of the launch of the Resolve Network's Community-Based Armed Groups Project at the beginning four years ago in 2018, and today one of its final sessions. I really want to compliment the result team on launching this initiative because I think one of the important reasons that it was launched was to provide an extremely nuanced perspective on the impacts of violent extremism on local conflict dynamics, how the arrival of the groups and international response networks, our own responses were igniting, transforming, realigning local security arrangements, including among community-based armed groups. Resolve really successfully moved the security community away from this extremely narrow perspective on local security to widen the aperture so that we could all see how communities, women and men, civil society, and community-based armed groups were responding to the new security dynamics. I think one of the other important accomplishments of Resolve and one of the reasons for its beginning was employing local researchers and connecting them with noted experts so that we could not only understand the local conflict dynamics and make sense of them, but in the process advance thinking more broadly on a whole range of issues. Localization, which is so important to peacebuilding right now, gender in armed groups, and security sector reform. So to kick off this discussion, I have been asked to, in many ways do it, a tutorial on the difference between non-state armed groups such as violent extremist groups or rebel and insurgent groups, which is really important for today's discussion on whether reintegration and demobilization efforts apply to community-based armed groups. So in thinking about community-based armed groups and how they're different from these other non-state actors groups, I'm going to hit you all with four points. First is that while community-based armed groups are a subset of non-state armed groups, unlike insurgent or terrorist groups, they don't seek to disrupt or undermine the state in order to establish an alternative political system. They really advance the local ambitions of their stakeholders, so they're very locally rooted organizations with their stakeholders being the state, community leaders, formal or informal government institutions. In general, they're sort of status quo seekers, they're not revolutionaries. Second, community-based groups are extremely fluid organizations. They can start as hunter groups, they can morph into community or ethnic militias, they can then be deputized to serve with the military or they can form alliances within surgent groups. They're generally not motivated by political ideologies or worldviews, but by external shifts in the political security environment, which explains their fluidity, this response to these shocks and emerging trends. I think another important factor for the discussion of sea bags is how they use violence and how they act as governance actors. Some sea bags negotiate how and when they use violence with local or national stakeholders. This is sort of a spectrum. They use violence. Their use of violence is rooted in socially accepted norms in the community, and they may use it more discriminately and protectively, such as self-defense groups. That's one end of the spectrum. Other sea bags use violence more coercively and indiscriminately, often to advance their own material interests. On the other end of the spectrum, these more Milan groups are gangs or vigilante groups. The other important factor for purposes of our discussion today is the different roles that sea bags can play in their communities in terms of governance. They can administer justice. They provide social services, and they can even play governance and political roles. How sea bags use violence and how they govern is absolutely critical for the discussion today on how they should be demobilized and reintegrated into communities. After all, how they use violence and against whom is going to impact discussions around demobilization and integration, and their role as governance actors will also be a critical factor as they transition from armed groups to civilian life. With that, Mary Beth, I will turn it back over to you. Thank you, Lauren. That was a great, great overview. Okay, so shifting to Kamina. Kamina, can you tell us a little bit, drawing on your own research and experience, how individuals disengage from sea bags and just a little bit about what you've observed with these groups, particularly I know in Côte d'Ivoire, you've been working on them. So what does that process of disengagement look like for them, and what are some of the common drivers of disengagement in that DDR process? Yes. First of all, I would like to thank the reserve network for the invite. It's always a pleasure and always interesting to learn more about sea bags. I've been working on female and male participation in non-state armed groups, including on community-based armed groups in Côte d'Ivoire since 2014, and this really quick presentation is based on feed workers that have been carried out since 2014 in three cities in Abidjan. In Abidjan, Boaquet, which was the eight-quarter of the rebel groups, and in Corogo, which is another city from the north of Côte d'Ivoire. I appreciate that because my main focus is on the rebels, and within these groups, there were subgroups, as Lauren explained, which were the traditional hunters, and those traditional hunters called dozo, for the case of Côte d'Ivoire. Some dozo individually joined the rebellion, also joined the crisis, joined the rebel groups, and within the rebellion, there were some units made of dozo, and those units were also composed with women, so just to give you the big picture. Basically, based on my research on female and male ex-combatants from non-state actors, which include of course sea bags, what we can say is that sea bags members' disengagement is really similar in many points to their counterpart ex-combatants from non-state armed groups in Côte d'Ivoire. What I've been working on is that there have been three main paths for disengagement in Côte d'Ivoire. The first one is that some former sea bag members were integrated into the official security and administrative apparatus, either as soldiers or as civil servants. This was made during the post-conflict era, and there were two main ways. One was after 2007, because after 2007, there were an agreement between the rebellion and the state, and they integrated more than 8,000 ex-combatants, including some dozo, into the army. The second way is made of ex-combatants with John the rebellion after the post-electoral crisis in 2011. Just another precision, maybe, is that in 2017, there were a mutiny in Côte d'Ivoire, made by those 8,000 years in ex-combatants who were integrated within the army. They still have a really important role within the state, either as threats or as protectors. We can talk about it later on if you want to. I've been talking about the first path, which was the fact that some of them were able to join the army. The other path was the fact that some of them re-integrated the community without going through DDR processes. We can call it self-disengagement and self-reintegration. There were some of them, those of them who self-reintegrate. Some just went back to other activities as traders, helders, drivers of mototaxi and so on. Some other, they joined some association of dozo, for instance, and they continued to work in the security sector. We will focus on them later on, if you have a little bit more time, or we can discuss about them later. For those who stayed in the security sector through those associations, they are still trying to negotiate their role as a security auxiliary with the state. With relative success. The last path I would like to highlight is those who joined the DDR process, the national DDR process, mainly voluntarily. There are many programs of DDR organized during the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire, but I've been working on two main of them, the more successful, if I can say. In this case, they were supported by the programs to create income-generating activities. Some of them were working as mototaxi drivers, traders, chicken farmers, pig farmers, builders, and so on. What we can say is that we really subgroups, those who joined the DDR process, they are those three subgroups. Those for whom the plain DDR activities worked, so their activity is flourishing and they are satisfied with the DDR process and the fact of joining the DDR process. Those for whom it didn't work, if I can say. In this context, some of them have switched to other activities or have returned to their former activities, sometimes as traders, helders, and so on. There is a third group, and this is on these groups that I'm really working on. They decide to organize them as associations of ex-combatants and they are mobilizing to obtain more money from the state or to obtain a job, and also they are mobilizing to gain recognition from the state. If I may, I'd like to give some details on female combatants within this framework. In Côte d'Ivoire, as part of the post-conflict process, women who joined the armed groups were considered as ex-combatants on the same basis as men, which is not the case in all DDR process, so it's always interesting to decide that. In the context of DDR, there were, as I said, many veterans associations which were created and there were also female veterans associations which have been created in this framework. The women I've been working with, I can divide them between two groups. There were some women who joined the army or the paramilitary corps and they are pretty satisfied with the post-conflict era and there are some other women who joined the DDR process, who self-demobilized and they benefited from income-generating activities. Most of the time, those of the women who benefited from income-generating activities had lower satisfaction than those who joined the army or the paramilitary corps for many reasons that I can detail later on. Another point I would like to say is that it should also be noted that during our investigation, we had the opportunity to meet some women who were considered as ex-combatants, some men as well, but who had not belonged to any armed groups. According to some DDR staff members, some women who had never been members of armed groups had breached world laws to have their names included on lists provided by DDR as part of the profiling of ex-combatants. I just wanted to highlight the fact that corruption is also part of all those processes and sometimes if you are not within the network, you can't join the official DDR process and it's also the reason why some of them decide to self-denigrate and to go back within the community directly. It's really another important fact that I would like to highlight is about the dozo. As I said, I've been working on the dozo as a subgroup that it was really interesting because the dozo were, how can I say that, they were organizing into association way before the crisis. Some other decided to recreate or create new associations after the crisis to stay and to continue to work within the security sector as auxiliary, but also they decided to create those associations to gain money because while they're working within the security sector, it's a way for them to gain some money. So what we can say is that whether or not they are going through the DDR process, some other engage in many activities that are still linked to the security sector and while the state encouraged to disengage from the rebel groups through DDR, for instance, some members of CBAGS, especially the dozo, want to stay in the security sector for many reasons. As I said, the money security aspect because their community still needs protection, especially in the rural areas and they consider also the protection of the community as their ancestral role. So this is also the reason why they try to stay within the security sector. So for this reason, most of the members of CBAGS I've been working with, they partly disengage because they try to stay within the security sector in some, but in a tricky way, if I can say, and their mobilization within association is a way for them to stay within this sector. Thank you. Thank you, Camina. That was wonderful, such rich information, really enlightening, so wonderful to hear about your research and your experience there. So I wanted to ask, it does seem that disengagement and reconciliation and reintegration approaches make sense in certain contexts and Lauren, you talked about when you give us an overview of CBAGS, you talked about groups that are coercive in their use of violence and groups that have a more negotiated use of violence with the community. So I wanted to ask both of you, you can feel free to chime in. In what context do you think these approaches are useful or how are they useful? And also, might we need different approaches? I mean, CBAGS seem to comprise so many different types of groups. So, Lauren, you mentioned gangs, like do we actually want to reintegrate gangs in the military now? So it depends on these groups, I think, and whether they're predatory or more based in the community. So any insights on one, do we need these approaches or in which contexts are certain approaches more appropriate? Lauren, do you want to kick us off? Sure, Mary Beth, and I think you raise a great point, which has often been problematic in terms of thinking about CBAGS and reintegration and disengagement, which is that we often make certain assumptions around community based armed groups and apply them to the entire group or pedophilia groups. And I think that that has really hurt our efforts to help CBAGS make this transition. I think I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the assumptions that we make about CBAGS and what that's meant in terms of some really, really problematic interventions and some really disastrous results in terms of engagement in CBAGS transition. I think one of the early and really faulty assumptions that really needs to be addressed, and it was a fascinating listen to Camilla's presentation to see a little bit of the advancement in Cote du Roir in terms of engagement with community based armed groups, which in many ways historically has not been there. There's often been the assumption that community based armed groups in a way don't need this sort of DDR engagement or this transition engagement in the same way that insurgent groups or rebel groups do who are more threats to the state. And there's this sort of assumption that communities, CBAGS don't need reintegration because they will simply melt back into the communities that they came from. So I think that's been a poor assumption. And we saw from Camilla's presentation that community based armed groups are actually made up of many different layers of groups. So while we have originally begun to take on community security tasks, they then may evolve into community security providers. They may negotiate new relationships with the state and other insurgent groups. And then in that process, they become fundamentally different organizations. You saw this with the civilian defense forces in Sierra Leone. You saw earlier in Cote du Roir and Camilla with the Benghati movement, which is that you began to see many different layers of groups interacting on these traditional hunter and security protective groups. When that happens, that is when you have sort of in many ways the danger of coercive versus more negotiated violence. You see that these new recruits often don't come from the same community traditions. They don't share the same social norms around violence. You begin to see that these recruits are given very quick introductions to the social and cultural norms of the group, not years of the socialization of the original members. You begin to see as the CBAG roles and responsibilities expand, that they become detached from these communities. They're deployed to other parts of the country. Their social and community norms are replaced by state interests and norms around the views of violence change. So I think it's very important, as Camilla has laid out, that you think of CBAGs as not one don't make assumptions about who they are as a group, that they are in groups for very different reasons, economic reasons, protective reasons, and then normative reasons. In many cases, these more layered elements of CBAGs, the ones that join later, that are engaged in coercive violence, the ones that are unmoored from their communities, are the ones that are often not engaged in DDR or transformation processes. And we see there, as we did in Sierra Leone, that these often become the criminal elements within the communities. We saw them move into the diamond trade in Sierra Leone and quote Duvar historically, they contributed to growing civil violence coming out of the coups and election contestation. I think the other thing that I'd like to address, which Camilla is so eloquently addressed as well, is that often the impulse here, which was tried in code Duvar, is to integrate community-based armed groups into the armed forces. And I think that can be done for many reasons. Number one is just to establish oversight over groups that could potentially be a threat to the state. But there may also be more positive impulse on the side of international groups to really integrate into the armed forces groups that are more responsive as community-based armed groups can be to citizen and community interest in security and definitions around security. But I think Camilla has actually pointed out the danger in that, which is that armed forces are nest beds of nepotism, patrimonialism, factionalization, and exclusion. And we see the danger here that integration of community-based armed groups only contributes. That sort of factionalization and politicization of the armed groups, which we saw in code Duvar. And then on the other side, where we've seen community-based armed groups, instead of integrating that community perspective into the armed forces, can actually be captured locally as well, where you see community-based armed groups again engaging in more coercive forms of violence as traditional leaders manipulate local police forces or local military forces in order to engage in localized conflict or suppress local groups. And so that's just some of the assumptions that I think have been made about community-based armed groups and how our own interventions have played into that coercive negotiated dynamic of violence. Wonderful. Thank you, Lauren, for those insights. Before I turn it over to Camilla to weigh in, I just wanted to remind everyone in the audience that if you have any questions as we're talking, please use the Q&A function or drop them in the chat, depending on which platform you're on, because we will be taking audience questions in a bit. So Camilla, do you want to let us know what you think? Yes, of course. Thank you very much, Lauren. I totally agree with what you said. Do we need these approaches? I think the problem in Côte d'Ivoire is the fact that there were no specific programs. They didn't approach those groups specifically. They approached them at the wall. And they did the same for the woman because the Didier was not gender-sensitive. It was gender-blind. Even if they say in some texts that the Didier process was gender-sensitive, when you ask women and would just observe what has been done during the Didier process, it was gender-blind. And the fact that we approached all those layers of groups the same way as huge consequences on the post-conflict era. Because you can't approach a civilian who have never joined a group for material reasons or even security during a particular time frame as you approach someone as a dozo even before the crisis was involved in the security sector. So it's difficult to expect from them that after the crisis they would just go back to their former activities. Because most of the time their former activities was in the security sector. It just evolved during the crisis. Even if it wasn't their main activities, during the crisis this security aspect was emphasized. And it was giving them some financial security, legality and other criminal activities. So basically what I can say is that it's really important to as Resolve is doing, it's really really important to try to get more information about the context, about what are the different groups we are trying to demobilize. Why do they join the groups? It's really important. What were their activities during the crisis? But maybe and most importantly, what were they doing before the crisis? And I think it's a point that most of the time we don't emphasize. We want to know what the groups and what they were doing during the crisis. But if you want a good I guess reintegration program, I believe it's really important to know what they were doing before the crisis. Because this before can explain also in which activity you can reintegrate them well and you can also interrogate why they stopped their activities to join an armed groups. And so I believe it's really important to really try to understand what is the context, the local context and even in Côte d'Ivoire it's different what happened in the north is really different from what happened in the south is even more different from what happened in the west where there were also multiple groups. So it needs time, it needs microbial analysis and it needs also a long-term perspective before the crisis and also a prospective analysis. Thank you. Thank you Camina. I absolutely agree with you. So the DDR literature does talk a lot about the fact that we do need to tailor these programs to individuals and not just the skills or what they were doing before but also their aspirations. So is that actually what they want to be doing? And so I guess I was wondering what can we take from a violent extremist disengagement reintegration programs or DDR approach ideology because with violent extremist groups for a lot of individuals not all but you do have an ideology that's motivating involvement and you see that also in some cases of DDR. So it seems in these cases how can we help individuals make that transition through programming and also thinking a little bit about what you were mentioning Camina. What role does stigma play in their reintegration? I imagine the stigma will vary across those seabags based on what they did while active. Yes indeed. I've been working on the question of the stigma more for women than for the do so but it was a real point, a real matter because the fact that they are based within the community is central. Most of the time before during and after the crisis they were just all living together but the power changed at a certain point during the crisis because they have weapons they are more powerful than civilians and after the crisis they get back they were supposed at least to get back to their to the same actually social status and this is also a reason why some of them decided to give to them because there were also protection needs and why I've been, I tried to be really quick on that point but I tried to to make comparison between the three cities I've been working on, Abidjan, Boaquet and Corogo and I've been working with three different associations of those different locations and what I've been observing is depending on the location, depending on the need, the relation between the the Dozo Association and the states is totally different. In Corogo for instance you are in the north of the country it's there are more, there are less police officers, less security apparatus from the states and there is a real need from the community to get protected so there is a huge the Dozo have a huge headquarters which has been financed by politicians during the during the crisis, local backbone and so on like really big top politicians and now sometimes they were doing meetings with the the the state members of the state to regarding the security of the area it's really different from Abidjan where the Dozo are playing another card and they can't because there is the police officer and because we are in urban city we can't expect from Dozo who have traditional weapons for instance to patrol in the streets while in Corogo in from rural area the Dozo are the only providers of security. Can we learn, do you want to weigh in? Yeah, thank you Marybeth and Trina this is a great discussion I got a little bit the idea of stigmatization and some of the work we're trying to do at NDI with a terrific organization beyond conflict and this idea of stigmatization I think is really important and that a deeper analysis of stigmatization should really inform our interventions around individuals and around community-based armed groups themselves and I think one of the things that we're beginning to realize is that there's various levels of stigmatization and that should really inform how you engage and how your programming should engage if we think of stigmatization there's a continuum there might be stigmatization that is simply misperceptions about the other group right that you know the members of community-based armed groups are always violent right or you know they're you know anti-social we might have another category of stigmatization that others you know community-based armed groups that they are not of us they are different and they are a threat and they must be dealt with in that way and then there's some more problematic which we we've always heard you know about individuals community-based armed groups members that are trying to integrate that they are you know that they are their microbes or their particles or their this dehumanization of community-based armed groups and I think really paying attention to stigmatization a misperception might just be bringing groups together othering requires greater and more you know dialogue into group dialogue and then this idea around you know dehumanization really means that we need to be thinking about security protections etc monitoring violence and those types of movements so I think this area of stigmatization is really important and really needs to be a critical part of our analysis the last thing I want to say on programmatic interventions um which is that I think it was threaded through all of your discussion um around the different interventions but I would really like to pull it out um in the sense that we often think of engaging members of community-based armed groups in jobs programs or in social reconciliation programs right but we really don't think of this in terms of a governance approach or a democracy and governance approach um that often members and Mary Beth this is what we pick up from sort of some of the VEDR thinking right um that really you know members of armed groups can have legitimate grievances um they can have grievances about state predation state abandonment state exclusion um etc um but that armed groups are sort of the only avenue they might have available to engage that grievance um and so I would really hope that we you know see a lot more in terms of what I would call governance engagement of community-based armed groups members and groups themselves um a number one and community your third group was doing that right they were they had become advocates engaging the state um so that's a governance role they had become you know turn their grievances into nonviolent approaches to the state civic education um I think is another thing teaching community-based armed groups how they can engage governments um to change and and and advocate for legitimacy election monitors right how do they engage them in you know pro governance groups um that are helping to you know improve community security um I'll leave it at that it's just the only thing I will say is that I also think there's a missing middle and governance um that we often when we talk about ddr we focus on state structures and how we can um reform security sector institutions so that they're less predatory more responsive to citizens and we focus at the local level right on how do we help um you know community-based armed groups armed group members um renegotiate their identities with the community but there's is all important missing middle and governance um these are the traditional leaders that help governments um translate um you know governance norms down to communities um these are civil servants who are trained in helping communities move past violence um and I think community-based armed groups that often navigate that terrain between the state and communities can play powerful governance roles in reestablishing those connections between the state and the community so just in terms of programming really thinking more about that third pillar of governance in addition to economic and social reforms great thank you Lauren and that was one of the things that I was was thinking you know as you were speaking is you know um in in week you know the ddr literature does tell us like typically we need a certain threshold um you know of political stability of democracy of these sorts of things um and so I guess I'm wondering and you know in weak security environments or in weak governance environments you know are certain c bags worth not disengaging you know if they are serving a hybrid governance role obviously some we want to would want to disengage but but those ones that are serving somewhat of a positive role so I see like on the one hand they challenge the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force but they are you know um serving a public good any thoughts on that Kamina or Lauren um you can go on very bad um that's that's really important I think that c bags um come out of uh they are not just security actors in their communities um as communists describe with hunter groups um they provide really important on political social norms at the local level on how communities interact with each other how justice is served um we have seen um you know c bag groups rooted in um important community um social and political transitions from youth to adulthood and what it means to be an adult and a responsible member of the community um we have seen members of community based armed groups um move in and out we see this at NDI all the time of political parties and social movements on the ground and really advocating for political transformation and change and I think that if I talked it earlier about like assumptions that we make about community based armed groups um I think that's one of the assumptions that we really have to quickly um move past um that unlike violent extremist groups and you know rebel groups that seek to overthrow the state or undermine the state community based armed groups have often members played important roles in seeking to transform and reform or shore up you know governance and I think that's one of the important avenues for exploration for the transition of those c bag individuals or groups great thank you I do agree that they don't only have this security purpose and for instance um one of the association I'm working I'm working with in uh in codivoire uh they as I said they they are not able to to really focus on this security aspect because the police is here and there is a wall apparatus uh state apparatus that cannot be really overthrown but what they are doing is that they are focusing on the cultural side of the dozo as I said the dozo are traditional hunters and so they they convey a message of developmentalist discourse to protect the nature to protect the forest and because uh uh the nature is uh under uh is under armed and they they they create NGOs to protect the nature and to focus more on this aspect but globally they try to survive with different strategy uh within the the the state apparatus some of them have the ability to focus on security purpose and others I think are using other other other other domain to to to to maintain themselves within this uh within the era of the state great okay I'm going to move to some some questions we have some questions coming in from the audience so um all right so there seem to be uh some examples of attempts to reintegrate former terrorists or violent extremists um that can have negative security consequences so for example in Afghanistan uh is this also a concern for seabags so thinking about whether you know you um send these individuals out into the community I think Kamina you mentioned a little bit um about individuals um yes I'm not working on terrorism so I really can yes most most of them what I've seen is that uh some of them try to they didn't the the case of Kodiwa is really special so that's why sometimes it's a little bit tricky uh even when we are talking about seabags because they they have an important role even before the crisis in the security and so they joined the crisis uh some of them joined it and after uh they try to to maintain the the security sector so uh yes it's a it's a concern even for seabags the that some of them after their disengagement try to come go back within the the group for many reasons it's can be financial it can be normative it can be also uh for security purpose as well um how to mitigate that um it's a really good question um I guess by doing uh if we if we want to keep the GDR um take the the GDR approach within this framework I think it's as I said before it we really need to be more contextual to be more precise uh precise uh to uh to have more um knowledge about those groups to understand what uh what do they to understand their aspirations and what why why when I was talking about the long-term perspective is because of that sometimes the program and after two or three years of even six months we need to go back it needs money it needs everything but we need to go back sometimes two years three years ten years later to understand what happened to evaluate and to monitor what happened and I think that is always missing and if we don't do that I mean some researchers are doing that we are but if it's not at a state a state level apparent level is going to be really complicated to understand uh why they decide to to re-engage and to just to mitigate this this kind of re-engagement yeah I think that's a really important point so and the DDR literature talks a lot about that right so you have a you have your sort of one-off programming but DDR should be viewed as sort of part of this larger political process right and so even if you know your programming is is successful in the sense that they're offering you know um financial incentives and other things um you know if those structural issues are still there and those grievances are what's motivating involvement in the seabag or security provision for the community is still not good then we will see individuals going back to those those groups um Lauren did you want to weigh in on this question yeah I'll just um add to what you and community members are talking about this idea that you know these are actually in many ways um political negotiations um DDR is a political negotiation uh community based on groups members can return um and so I think one of the important aspects um of that is that the community itself needs to feel that its security needs are being met um either through national um level security sector reform or and it's something that has not come up yet in this discussion the need for local accountability for the violence that was perpetrated if the community does not feel secure um with with these you know former combatants entering the community uh then then seabags will never be demobilized right effectively the community will remobilize or they will will encourage you know them not not to to go away or play out their roles um and then right now they think the other thing it was a great question about um Afghanistan as well which is that I think you know in this case it's to come in as long term you know there's there's a political structural institutional negotiations that go on but you know community based on groups have been in these um communities for generations um and so and and as part of that process um there has always been a community negotiation around the behaviors and social norms around violence and what these um you know community based armed groups can and cannot do within the context of the community I think it's a great discussion around Afghanistan because sometimes you know these transitions are started when these mechanisms um community mechanisms that were used to engage community based on groups have broken down they're non-existent so we're bringing these these political security back actors back into you know a vacuum a political and social where coercive violence is the possibility so it suggests is important for us to focus on the institutional behavioral and normative um you know uh institutions that exist in the community as much as we are focused on as Kameena had the individual because that's what's going to determine um successful reintegration if I may I just would like to add the one point uh is that the the re the re-engagement of some of them is also due to uh new threats because uh for instant terrorism wasn't a question before I mean 2014-2015 in Côte d'Ivoire and there is there was this maybe two or three years during which it was really the post-crisis um um consequences but after that after the the attacks in in Basam where the terrorist attack in Basam um there the communities were facing new threats and there were new needs for security that the state wasn't able to to give all the in every area of the country that's also a reason why the some groups re-engage to protect the community because there is there were there's this new needs have you um have you ever seen a backlash to efforts to um you know to disengage these community-based armed groups I'm just thinking I studied the IRA a bit and you know um when they were going through their their ceasefires I mean there really was worry in the community like who's going to protect us um do you see that do you see sort of from the community this this worry or like backlash against the disengagement of those groups um not um not really for my case but because once again it's a layers of actors and but in the it's really different to me I can't I can't talk for the whole Côte d'Ivoire and because I have not been working on old seabags um for Abidjan for instance they were seeing the dozo and the seabags more as a sometimes more at the streets for some parts of the population at least but when you go to the north it really depends on the the groups sometimes there have been so many um relations so many criminal activities during the war and even after the war made by those seabags that they they are not really seeing them as as a protectors but as a as a threat that it really depends on the part of the country on the groups and that's the reason why I've been working quickly on the bureaucratization because the dozo they have their they have um clothes traditional clothes they have their traditional weapons as well but what happened during if after even before the crisis is that some some criminals just were able to buy those clothes in the market and they were going to do some criminal activities so they tried they they were issuing cards official cards from the association with terms with the the footprints with and they were sending the the the cards to the make sure that when police officials were were were controlling those dozo we were patrolling with them sometimes they were able to show an official card so there was the it was a way to take all those issues yeah that's fascinating okay Lauren do you any thoughts on this or yeah and I think Mary badness is actually an important point um which which I think is important to know you know um in this discussion which is that yes I mean I think there's backlash in in this commune said in heightened sense of a threat in the community um as seabags um because of this deteriorating security environment form alliances with the state or captured by the state um or for alliances with insurgent groups um and so then sort of their rootedness and community values um you know seabags you know perceptions um and actions around the use of violence around you know what is you know inappropriate um threat changes okay and I think that is where we see sort of you know the most um you know community um backlash or nervousness around this um so I'm thinking um in the sense where you know we've seen community based on groups ethnic groups um in Mali aligning with um violent extremist groups um often um against the wishes of members of their own ethnic groups it don't want to see the politicization and um of their own um of their own um existence you know locally and seabags have committed atrocities against those members of their own community right um and so then you see as well you know in Burkina Faso and in Nigeria um the capture of community based armed groups by the state apparatus um you know in the midst of insurgencies um so you see community based armed groups becoming um intelligence gatherers well that you know for community members is is is a nervous function for these who are they reporting on who are they accountable to um who who authorizes and and governs their activities in the community going forward and who are their allegiances to um the same with you know you know community based armed groups that have been in some ways you know captured in whole um by Nigerian governors um and who are no longer sort of connected to community norms so and the reason I raise this is because more and more this is the norm that community based armed groups are being captured by um state and other insertion group interests and so I think you're going to see more and more of these cases where um they are detached from communities from their norms from their interests for longer periods of time and I think then the reintegration of community based armed groups either as groups or individually becomes much more problematic yeah that was that was a very um uh you know uh disheartening comments there um so I guess I'm wondering Lauren I just to push you a little further like in those contexts what can be done um you know it seems like the um you know when you have sort of a predatory state you know exploiting these groups um you know does it have to be a massive political like regime change like what like what what can you do in those contexts I mean it doesn't seem like you could disengage you maybe you could disengage and that was a question I had you know is this always a collective process maybe you could disengage individuals from those groups um but it just um it seems like a very difficult situation well Mary Beth and and kind of this is where I would love your perspective as well because we've been talking about the ddr at the back end right you know after things have started to to encounter and and I I've been thinking a little bit more about like you know could we set up um mechanisms and institutions um at the front end you know if we if we are understanding that states in these moments of tremendous into security as violence rises who are tapping into these localized actors um if we know that's what they're doing right could we not put in place um could could not our you know engagement with security sector actors which is almost more formal right you know military to armed forces right um could we not start to engage on this issue right do we put in place mechanisms around the deputization of community-based armed groups into formal you know security actors do we put in place monitoring mechanisms do we um you know insist that they also receive not that it has been entirely or even remotely effective but you know human rights training do we you know do we begin to accept that this is you know a formal arrangement with informal actors and begin to encourage um more um protections and professionalism around these in order to um you know assist with the transition actor you're talking about like training professional professionalization of those groups or yeah i'm talking about um you know if that's the assumption and why are we not engaging in our security sector you know um training which we do a lot of with these communities and how do we encourage you know official military actors to help professionalize those relationships how if this is going to happen how do we teach governors in Nigeria what appropriate civil military control of our you know armed actors is even in the informal sector and most importantly how do we train civil society organizations on the important role they have in monitoring the operations of security forces in their communities so yeah i think those are all really important points i guess my mind you know kind of goes to um you know if i guess if the if the state military you know it's it's not um you know engaging in you know protecting human rights and those sorts of things it's really hard to then you know engage with them in training of the seabag so i just know cases where like the u.s is offering military assistance but it's it's just really hard to um you know have compliance on on human rights issues and those sorts of things and i imagine in my mind that those are the contexts where they're kind of picking up these seabags um you know to to use them and then i guess another thing i i kind of think of is you know um in the violent extremism literature a lot of times the state will will ally with these groups because they want to distance themselves right and they can engage in all the dirty nasty violence um they could say well wasn't me it was the seabag right um so so they do have um sometimes an incentive not to train those forces um to be to be professional right they're kind of using them um in that that sense Kamina did you want to add anything or yes i think it's interesting but even could you while there were this question of uh officializing the dozo association but they they didn't went really far on the on this question because as a as Mary Beth said it's it's too dangerous for them there are so many different agendas i think it's it's complicated and it's too risky um for them uh mainly because it's a it's still a polarized polarized society so it's really complicated to embrace the dozo we were we were fighting for one side and to train them officially and to make them part of the official apparatus i guess it's one of the the reason because uh uh even if they still have difficulties to to control the army that's why i was talking about the the mutiny uh the security the security sector isn't isn't stable and so it's really complicated i guess to to went further with the seabags group all right so there's this great question that's been lingering here in the chat that i'm dying to ask from the audience and i think it's a very important question so um you know we've talked a lot about the importance of if we can have them political settlements or peace processes and this being part of that larger process um and the question from the audience is how should seabags be included or consulted in peace processes where these programs are negotiated so when should we include seabags in those those negotiations and i guess i would push you to think about what kinds of seabags should be included so some of them may be positive actors some of them may be negative actors although i would add that negative actors if they're not included could be you know potential spoilers of that that peace process um i would say it's better to include everyone to the table of discussion that uh theoretically it's it's easy to say even say i'm done uh but yes it's crucial as it's important to have women on the table it's it's crucial to have to try at least to have those actors because as i mentioned within the rebellion there were those dozo but once the ddr process started dozo and rebels were considered as the same and it's tricky effectively because uh those all those layers of identities are really hard to distinguish but it is important for the international community for cso's actors and stuff to to really make this work to make sure that okay a dozo while is both a rebel and a dozo uh can can really talk about this point uh um because they they probably don't have the same perspective as other groups as a woman don't have the the same perspective as as a male counterpart it's really important to make sure that i don't it's they're trying to do that even with terrorist groups but with it's way more complicated but i i've i've seen in mali for instance there they were trying to do one great lauren do you have any thoughts on this you know i i do have some thoughts i think it's a great question especially mary batheer you know idea of spoilers versus positive members and and i remember you know in in the research i did on you know how to typologize different community-based armed groups um one of the more interesting um approaches that i ran across and i think it's useful for this discussion was in sierra leone um where there was actually a a pre-negotiation phase with these community-based armed groups um where civil society members um went into you know wherever these community-based armed groups were engaged and and sat down and said you know before we even get to the negotiation table what is it going to take you know for you to reintegrate effectively what are your motivations for being in these community-based armed groups um what are you fighting for how could that be transitioned into you know it's civilian life um and and i thought so my answer to that is um you know that mary beth does two things number one um it it in many ways creates the parameters for the local peace negotiation right because what is it going to take for armed actors um to lay down their arms right um and i don't think we do that we do it at the national level with insurgent you know groups you know what is it going to take but i don't think we do it at the local level there's sort of this assumption um that you know a local peace process is all it takes um so there's not this pre um but i think it also um gets at the issue of programming right what is it going to take um in terms of programming um to make the peace processes effective and implementable after um so i would throw that out great thank you um there's a question from the audience about stigma um and whether or not so that came up um is a potential barrier to reintegration i'm and i know lauren you mentioned that that's something you're focusing on right now um and i know it's something i'm actually working on in the the violent extremism world um do you see that as something that's you know um or do you see uh social cohesion programs as something that might be useful in in combating that stigma or yes absolutely and i mean i'll probably mostly turn this over to you because you were the one that mentioned you know the importance of stigmatization um but yes i mean this again gets back to the idea that you know um community-based art groups um are for and of the community and cannot successfully reintegrate um unless they're the community is engaged in um you know um social cohesion efforts around conflict dynamics is exactly said that commune said it doesn't result community-based art groups will not go away social cohesion around um stigmatization and reintegrating community-based art groups back in if they're not reintegrated back in um they become um coercive actors gangs vigilante groups um so i think these social cohesion products are absolutely essential um however i don't think we know enough about what social cohesion projects work um in these particular contexts you know what does build trust you know in terms of Penny Actives and what doesn't um and so that i think is where um the biggest gap is to me yes on social cohesion um but i don't think we know enough yet um and so we tend to throw the same programs um at the same conflict problems yeah i i absolutely agree that we don't know what works in programs may be better suited for you know in in certain context where maybe you have a certain threshold of security it's very hard to ask people to to try and get along when they're you know worried their neighbor may kill them so i think there's there needs to be a certain threshold of security before we start thinking about you know building social cohesion and working a little bit on about that on the regarding women reintegration because um what is really interesting about the rebellion for instance from the north of Kodiwa is that uh some young people uh integrate the the the the groups because uh because their family for instance their father and their mother and uh and as well they were asking them to join the group and but after that it had consequences on on their on their life because uh some of them for the case of Kodiwa for instance the war was really short you know finally the the violence the the period of violence it was more a status quo for many years than a really uh uh war as we can talk as we can see for the for the second world war for instance and and so on um but uh so they stay in the community sometimes the community push them to join the group after that uh because because uh sometimes they have loot they have looted uh of sometimes they had criminal activities but sometimes just because they were in the armed groups their status changed changed within the community and sometimes it's really hard for them uh to deal with those different identities finally because the the they stayed within their communities there are the the children of these communities they they they joined the group to protect their communities and at the end uh sometimes the community reject them because just it's it's really yes they reject them but at the same time they were asking for them to join the group so uh as I said Lauren said it's really I think it's a gray zone and there there is a need for really more deep research on on that uh with a social perspective uh to understand what is happening to them and and it's really important to join the to uh to work with the community as well there is a huge work with to do with the community to understand uh why they are also acted like that with the their counterparts from seabirds and from seabags yeah those are really interesting points Kamina I think in the DDR literature they talk a lot about the fact to if you can have some community based projects as well as um you know information campaigns that explain like you know even though this person joined this group you know they're not responsible for all the groups activities or in many cases individuals were forced to join a group so so trying to inform the community a little bit can help not that it can completely eliminate stigma but that it can can help all right so I want to end on a positive note here um so there's a question um and from the audience how can seabags more effectively use their skills to serve communities um and better support peacebuilding so I think we're talking about the positive seabags here but how can they you know help with these societal transformations we keep talking about large structural transformations um you know is it possible for them to to be avenues for change in these societies take that one Lauren do you want to start I guess we're not a very positive group but um no that's not true um well I I think I would like to see us again on the governance angle um think of more positive governance roles um that we could imagine um for community based armed groups to play um so for example you know there's often a huge um gap um in for example disaster response and disaster relief right um in that you know the state can't get to many of these more um remote communities could we think of ways that community based armed groups could play roles in disaster response and disaster reliefs that um satisfy for those that are playing that more negotiated role in terms of violence that satisfy their needs of service um take advantage of the skills they have but this is where I really would like to think about in terms of community based armed groups is and then how can we help community based armed groups connect local communities to the state right um in more positive transformative ways um election observers so transforming community based armed groups into other types of security networks um that's how I think um again in terms of more governance functions and the last I'll say is that you know we've been doing some work um you know in terms of civil society groups um looking to engage um community based armed groups in um Olivia um in making the transition um to civil society um so again moving towards their their their need for advocacy um and their need for transformation but putting it in a more non-present place Mina do you want to have the last word oh I think you may be muted there you go yes really quick I think they have uh indeed multiple roles and uh even in the security sector they they are important actors in still in Côte d'Ivoire and as I as I said uh with those new threats uh as terrorism uh it's important to be as I said also um trying to work on different uh uh domain uh even on the uh uh protect protect the nature protect the forest protect the protect us from the climate change so they are really smart actors and it's important for us to uh understand them well uh to make sure that uh uh we will stay protected great thank you and so I think there are some commonalities in our discussion across the DDR and the violent extremism literature you know just in the fact that we need to really carefully consider the context that these groups are operating in the larger political structures as as well as the individuals involved in these groups what are their motivations what are their histories what are their their aspirations so with that I'm going to turn it over to you the result director Alistair Reed to to wrap us up thank you though great thank you very much to all of our speakers today and thank you all of you for joining us um this has been a really fascinating engaging discussion which has given us much food before and it's been a great conclusion to this phase of our c-bags project um please do visit our website to explore past c-bags publication there's a rich library of um of research there but also watch out for our latest publications coming out in the next few weeks we hope to build on our research on c-bags in the future by further investigating disengagement and reconciliation of c-bags as well as to explore the formation activities in different regions across the world finally today's event was the first in our annual global forum series of events so please do keep an eye on our website and social media for information on the next events in this series happening over the coming months thank you and I hope you'll have a good day