The study highlights existing barriers to farming and agricultural livelihoods, such as climate shocks and mass displacement, and their negative impact on reintegration. It also includes recommendations on how policies and programmes can better support dignified, sustainable and climate-resilient pathways for returnees.

Citation: Amos Benjamin and Francesca Batault, “Farming Amid Conflict: Agricultural Challenges and Their Impact on the Reintegration of Former Boko Haram Associates in the North East of Nigeria”, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2025.

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Citation: Kato Van Broeckhoven, Francesca Batault, Mohammed Bukar, and Fatima Yetcha Ajimi Badu, “Building Bridges: Community Acceptance of Former Boko Haram Associates in the North East of Nigeria”, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2025.

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This report examines the economic (re)integration of Iraqi returnees from Al Hol. Drawing on panel data collected from returnees between 2022 and 2024, it analyses the economic well-being of this highly vulnerable population over time. The report describes some of the local economies in Al Anbar and Salah Al-Din governorates, which receive large numbers of returnees, and highlights the various barriers faced by returning female- and male-headed households, including lack of access to skills training, education, social networks, and documentation. Although returnees’ economic wellbeing slowly improves over time, this population continues to fall behind their peers in the community.

Citation: Jente Althuis, Muqadas Samarrai, and Noor Alzuber, “Struggling to Keep Up: Iraqi Returnees’ Economic (Re)integration Progress Over Time”, Findings Report 45, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2025, https://doi.org/10.37559/MEAC/25/08.

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Repatriations of Iraqis from Syria’s Al Hol Camp through the Al-Amal Centre have increased since the start of 2025, supported by the recent announcement of the second phase of the “ONE UN plan” in Iraq. Increased repatriations mean more attention – and likely resources – are required to enable Iraqi families to leave Al-Amal without unnecessary delays and with the same degree of required support received by earlier cohorts to start their reintegration journey in Iraq. This brief presents insights on the safety and basic needs of returnees, services and education in the Centre, civil documentation, and the departure process from Al-Amal to returnees’ chosen area of return in Iraq.

Citation: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, “Update on the Situation of Iraqi Returnees in Al-Amal Rehabilitation Centre (Formerly Jeddah-1 Centre)”, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2025.

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The brief highlights the complex challenges these individuals are facing post-exit, including unmet basic needs like food, water and shelter, which can persist years after exit and difficulties in rebuilding livelihoods against a backdrop of climate change and ongoing insecurity. There are persistent gaps in service provision and a lack of gender-sensitive reintegration programming. This report draws from qualitative research conducted across the three countries between February and October 2024. Effectively addressing the needs of those exiting armed groups, and those of the communities into which they are reintegrating, through tailored and gender-sensitive responses is key to advancing an inclusive peace in the region.

Citation: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, “The Current Needs of Former Boko Haram Associates and Their Communities of Return”, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2024.

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From late 2019-2023, this Framework was beta tested across six countries (Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Iraq, and Colombia) as part of a series of multi-year pilot projects to stand up information collection systems and implement long-term assessments of conflict exits and transitions and various interventions meant to support them. Updated with the learning from these studies, the Framework is being publicly released as a living document to be used, interrogated, and updated as needed to support prevention and reintegration efforts. 

Ultimately, the MEAC Framework seeks to help the international community adopt a more coherent and empirically based approach to designing, implementing, and assessing interventions meant to support conflict exits and transitions. Armed with better quality and more relevant information, and working in greater unison, the international community can expect to be able to craft more effective and efficient interventions to assist individuals, their communities, and groups in sustainably transitioning away from violent conflict and building sustainably peaceful societies.

Citation: Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project (2023). “Conflict Exits Assessment Framework,” UNIDIR, Geneva, https://doi.org/10.37559/MEAC/23/10

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In addition, surveys and qualitative research were conducted in communities receiving a large number of returnees from Syria – Mosul and Qa’im – to better understand community receptivity to return. The analysis herein of these unique data sources will be useful to UN and NGO partners working in the region to bolster their early recovery programming, as well as efforts to support reintegration, community reconciliation, and broader peacebuilding efforts. The report ends with an examination of key policy and programmatic implications of these findings.

Citation: Schadi Semnani, Siobhan O’Neil, Mélisande Genat, and Yousif Khoshnaw, “Return and Reintegration Prospects for Iraqis Coming Back From Al Hol,” Findings Report 32, UNIDIR, Geneva, 2023, https://doi.org/10.37559/MEAC/23/06

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Specifically, the study set out to compare the answers to a set of five questions on drug use, victimization experiences, and social connectedness with the Boko Haram armed group between interviews conducted by phone and those administered face-to-face with an enumerator. The data comes from a survey carried out between May 2021 and early June 2022 (amid the COVID-29 health crisis) in the Maiduguri Metropolitan area and the communities of Jere and Kodunga, in Borno State, Nigeria, a region hard hit by the Boko Haram insurgency.

This report provides empirical evidence on the potential for utilizing remote assessment of UN-supported programmes in insecure and/or inaccessible areas. This report examines what works to overcome methodological challenges in remote data collection in the context of armed conflict, specifically by identifying the specific roll-out practices that appear to bolster responses.

Juan Armando Torres Munguía, Mohammed Bukar, Fatima Yetcha Ajimi Badu, Siobhan O’Neil, and Kato Van Broeckhoven (2023) “The Prospects for Remote Assessment: A Comparison of Phone vs In-person Interviews in Nigeria,” Findings Report 29, UNIDIR, Geneva, https://doi.org/10.37559/MEAC/23/03

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The report presents the results of an ongoing project initiated in collaboration with the late Emile Bruneau to scale up an innovative intervention to reduce the sociopsychological barriers that make it difficult for communities and countries to transition out of conflict. Emile Bruneau’s research philosophy aimed to apply brain and behavioural sciences to work for peace and security.

His work explored an empirical framework focused on the drivers of intergroup conflict and discrimination and tested intervention alternatives to identify and remove barriers to peace and integration. His goal was to find the mechanisms that could pull people and groups out of violence using a bottom-up approach to build peace in tandem with practitioners and communities.

This publication can be downloaded from the UNU-CPR website

Citation: Andrés Casas (2022) “Policy Memo: A Media Intervention Featuring Indirect Contact Promotes Peace in Rural Contexts Marked by Longstanding Internal Conflicts in Colombia” MEAC Policy Memo, United Nations University, New York.

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It presents data around community receptivity to and perceptions about individuals who exit Boko Haram. This report builds on published findings that indicate that people are generally accepting of former Boko Haram associates, but delves into what social acceptance means in practice and how it translates into the way people interact with former armed group associates in their daily lives.

These insights are unique as this data is collected in ongoing conflict, while reintegration is actively happening, and communities in and around Maiduguri are receiving those who exit Boko Haram and other armed groups.

This publication can be downloaded from the UNU-CPR website.

Citation: Rebecca Littman, Siobhan O’Neil, Kato Van Broeckhoven, Zoe Marks, and Fatima Yetcha Ajimi Badu (2021) “Social, Economic, and Civic Reintegration of Former Boko Haram Affiliates”, MEAC Findings Report 10, United Nations University, New York.

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The report presents data around the pervasiveness of COVID-19 messaging by the government and armed groups, and how each are understood and received by the public. This data may be useful to UN and NGO partners working in the region to bolster the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic

This publication can be downloaded from the UNU-CPR website

Citation: Aliyu Zakayo and Siobhan O’Neil (2021) “Armed Group Messaging on COVID-19 in Nigeria”, FMEAC Findings Report 6, United Nations University, New York.

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The report presents descriptive statistics from some of the key demographic and socioeconomic information gathered as part of this survey. UNU-CPR is producing this overview of the data as a standalone brief, however, because it provides a broad picture on economic and social life in parts of Borno State today.

Moreover, this robust data may be useful to UN and NGO partners working in the region to address urgent humanitarian crises and UNU-CPR wanted to ensure the information was made available quickly.

This publication can be downloaded from the UNU-CPR website

Citation: Kato Van Broeckhoven, Siobhan O’Neil and Mohammed Bukar (2021) “Social and Economic Life in and around Maiduguri,” MEAC Findings Report 4, United Nations University, New York.

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The report presents the results of three specific questions on gender-related dynamics. This data was gathered to help understand the context in which girls and women are recruited into armed groups, particularly the gender norms and gender expectations in the region. Insights into the roles of women and girls in society in North East Nigeria provide an important lens through which to view gender differences in conflict experiences, including within armed groups and armed forces, and reintegration trajectories after involvement.

Divorced from this purpose, however, these data points are likely of interest to a range of practitioners – and policymakers – working in Borno State. Although there are only a few survey results outlined in this report, UNU-CPR is producing this overview as part of a standalone brief in order to get it into the hands of UN and NGO partners working in the region to address urgent humanitarian crises.

This publication can be downloaded from the UNU-CPR website

Citation: Siobhan O’Neil and Kato Van Broeckhoven (2021) “Data Points on Gender Norms and Sexism in and Around Maiduguri” MEAC Findings Report 3, United Nations University, New York.

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These are the kinds of questions that UNIDIR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project is addressing through the launch of a new set of interactive data dashboards.

A closer look at life after conflict

Launched this month, the Data Dashboards for Managing Exits from Armed Conflict  are an open-access portal where users can explore de-identified, individual-level data collected from surveys with former associates of armed groups, affiliates of community security actors (e.g., militia groups), and unaffiliated community members affected by conflict.

The first three dashboards cover Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria — countries that have all experienced the devastating impacts of the Boko Haram conflict. The dashboards shed light on trajectories out of armed groups, community experiences with conflict and perceptions on reintegration, local security dynamics, and more.

And these are just the beginning. UNIDIR’s Project has been conducting similar surveys in other conflict-affected contexts — including Colombia, Iraq, and Niger — with new dashboards to be published as data becomes available.

Turning research into practical tools

Traditionally, findings from peace and security research are shared through detailed reports. While these offer valuable depth and analysis, they can sometimes be difficult to navigate for practitioners who need quick, targeted insights to inform their work on the ground.

Digital tools such as the dashboards change that. Users can now filter and explore the data based on their own interests — for example, comparing how men and women experience reintegration, or how trust in security actors differs across communities.

This flexibility makes the platform useful not just for researchers, but for anyone working on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, peacebuilding, prevention, or community development.

From field research to actionable insights

The dashboards bring together the Project’s extensive field research from Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, Iraq, Niger and Nigeria, and turns it into interactive tools that are easy to navigate. Whether you are a practitioner, policymaker or researcher, you can explore the data in ways that matter to your work.

This is about closing the gap between data and decision-making — and ensuring prevention and reintegration efforts are informed by the real experiences of people living through conflict and recovery. Their perspectives should be the starting point, not an afterthought.

Dr Siobhan O’Neil, Head of UNIDIR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project

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The workshop examined the evidence around armed group recruitment and conflict exit trajectories (Lake Chad Basin, Iraq, and Colombia) and discussed how these findings could inform policy and practice. 

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The MEAC Evidence & Learning Conference sought to redress this knowledge gap by bringing together a wide range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to share empirical findings about transitions out of armed groups in Iraq, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon, and Colombia. This multi-day conference commenced with a high-level opening day on Monday, 27 March 2023, where MEAC’s top-line findings were shared at the UN Headquarters. UNIDIR and UNU-CPR brought together a diverse group of experts to chart a way forward in light of the emerging evidence on factors that influence recruitment and those that promote reintegration progress.

This was followed by a two-day expert-level workshop at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. The workshop allowed practitioners, policymakers, donors, and researchers to collaboratively identify how programme design and implementation can be adjusted to advance innovative, empirically based, cross-sector approaches to prevention and reintegration.

Ultimately, this conference marked an important milestone in enhancing the international community’s ability to prevent and effectively respond to armed conflict.

Event Reports

A summary of the High-Level Opening Session can be found here.

A summary of the Expert-Level Workshop can be found here.

Event recordings

Recordings of the High-Level Opening Session can be accessed on the UN Web TV.

Recordings of the panels held during the MEAC Evidence & Learning Workshop can now be accessed through the playlist on UNIDIR’s youtube channel, or below.

Programme

The opening day took place on Monday, 27 March 2023, 15:00-18:00 ET, in Conference Room 11 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Following an introductory panel featuring MEAC project donors and UN partners, the opening day held two panels presenting original MEAC data and emerging findings from local experts on, 1) Factors that drive recruitment into armed groups in the Lake Chad Basin and implications for prevention interventions, and 2) Exit trajectories out of armed groups and implications for reintegration support.

Schedule

15:00-15:30 • Introductory Panel, featuring MEAC project donors and partners

15:30-16:30 • Factors that Drive Recruitment into Armed Groups in the Lake Chad Basin and Implications for Prevention Interventions  

16:30-16:45 • Break

16:45-17:45 • Exit Trajectories out of Armed Groups and Implications for Reintegration Support

17:45-18:00 • Q&A 
 

Building off the high-level opening day at the United Nations Headquarters on Monday, 27 March, a two-day expert-level workshop was held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice. The workshop days featured 10 thematic panel discussions to share more detailed findings from MEAC and other sources of evidence, followed by interactive small group sessions, sometimes held in parallel, that gave participants the opportunity to workshop practical ways to respond and incorporate the various findings into policy and practice.

The workshop agenda and thematic sessions can be found here:

Participants

UNIDIR encouraged the participation of member states, UN practitioners, policymakers, academics, researchers, and experts working on or interested in issues pertaining to preventing and responding to armed conflict.

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