In January 2011, the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) adopted the goal of developing an evidence-based approach for reintegration programming as a Strategic Priority area for the group’s joint strategic workplan for 2012–20141. This created an opportunity to advance long-time discussions between the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and numerous UN and partner agencies with whom it had engaged for the previous five years on matters of community security and the application of cultural research to programme design (including but not limited to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Organization for Migration).
In response to this strategic priority area—and developed from the basis of an on-going research agenda into programme design matters more generally—UNIDIR created and implemented a multiphase, multi-year project to develop a new tool that would assist field teams to design better, evidence-based reintegration projects for complex, dynamic, and volatile regions.
Citation: Lisa Rudnick and Derek B. Miller (2015). "Implementing Evidence-Based Design into Practice: Recommendations to the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration", UNIDIR, Geneva.