Key takeaways

• Mental health and psychosocial support research in active armed conflict is complex but feasible with appropriate safeguards and involvement of local actors and communities.
• Engaging lay leaders and delivering mental health support through schools, community centres and places of worship can help expand access and strengthen local ownership.
• Success in mental health and psychosocial support interventions should be measured beyond clinical symptoms to include psychosocial functioning, well-being, social relationships, cohesion and resilience.

This Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Research into Action report draws on a recent scoping review of mental health and psychosocial support interventions for populations affected by ongoing armed conflict.

The authors reflect on what the available evidence reveals, the challenges of assessing intervention impact in conflict settings, and the extent to which existing approaches respond to different cultural and contextual realities.

The report highlights the potential of local lay leaders and community-based settings to expand access to support amid dwindling resources. It recommends broadening how success is measured beyond clinical symptoms.

The authors emphasize the importance of making interventions more locally grounded, culturally relevant and accessible during ongoing conflict.

The post What Do We Know About Mental Health Support in War? first appeared on UNIDIR.

Understanding the challenges of returning to agricultural livelihoods is key to designing effective reintegration strategies and mitigating economic and social strain within communities of return, especially amid evolving political and security dynamics in the region.

The post Return to Dry Lands: How Agricultural Decline Impedes Post-Conflict Reintegration in Iraq first appeared on UNIDIR.

The findings suggest that awareness of drug use is widespread across conflict-affected communities in the Lake Chad Basin. While the data does not support assumptions of widespread addiction among former Boko Haram associates, the brief highlights concerns regarding drug use among some former and current affiliates of community security actors, and how this may affect reintegration, professionalization and support pathways. It underlines the need to incorporate substance-abuse screening into reintegration processes for former associates, while strengthening referral pathways and improving access to affordable prevention and treatment services for affected communities more broadly.

The post Understanding the Legacies of Drug Use in Armed Groups in the North East of Nigeria first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Farming Amid Conflict: Agricultural Challenges and their Impact on the Reintegration of Former Boko Haram Associates in the North East of Nigeria first appeared on UNIDIR.

The post Building Bridges: Community Acceptance of Former Boko Haram Associates in the North East of Nigeria first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Struggling to Keep Up: Iraqi Returnees’ Economic (Re)integration Progress Over Time first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Update on the Situation of Iraqi Returnees in Al-Amal Rehabilitation Centre (Formerly Jeddah-1 Centre) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post The Current Needs of Former Boko Haram Associates and Their Communities of Return first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post MEAC Conflict Exits Assessment Framework first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Return and Reintegration Prospects for Iraqis Coming Back From Al Hol (Findings Report 32) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post The Prospects for Remote Assessment: A Comparison of Phone vs In-Person Interviews in Nigeria (Findings Report 29) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Policy Memo: A Media Intervention Featuring Indirect Contact Promotes Peace in Rural Contexts Marked by Longstanding Internal Conflicts in Colombia first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post Social, Economic, and Civic Reintegration of Former Boko Haram Affiliates (Findings Report 10) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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

The post Armed Group Messaging on COVID-19 in Nigeria (Findings Report 6) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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

The post Social and Economic Life in and Around Maiduguri (Findings Report 4) first appeared on UNIDIR.

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

The post Data Points on Gender Norms and Sexism in and Around Maiduguri (Findings Report 3) first appeared on UNIDIR.

Policymakers and practitioners face a crucial challenge: despite decades of disarmament and reintegration programming, people’s motivations to join, leave and potentially rejoin armed groups are often poorly understood. As a result, there is a significant knowledge gap as to which approaches are most effective in helping sustain the transition to civilian life after conflict. Without a nuanced understanding of these dynamics, interventions risk being ill-equipped to facilitate disarmament and reintegration, which in turn can increase the risks of recidivism and conflict renewal.

Identifying what drives individuals’ recruitment and reintegration journeys is essential for designing effective interventions. UNIDIR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project helps fill critical evidence gaps and inform better-tailored approaches that promote and sustain pathways from conflict to peace.

Across six countries (Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Colombia and Iraq) the project has gathered fine-grained data that gets to the heart of why people disarm and demobilize, and before that, what leads them to join an armed group. This is done through:

• Quantitative methods (large-scale surveys of former armed group associates, former and current affiliates of community security and militia groups, and unaffiliated community members)

• Qualitative work (focus groups and key informant interviews)

• Other experimental and participatory approaches (such as research and photography workshops with conflict-affected youth).

A holistic assessment of conflict trajectories

UNIDIR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project adopts a holistic approach to understanding reintegration progress. It examines former associates’ reintegration journeys through various dimensions, including economic, social and psychological well-being and perceptions of community trust and acceptance. This multifaceted approach helps examine the progress and challenges people face on their reintegration journeys and how different factors – including livelihood difficulties, environmental challenges, governance policies and gender norms – affect transitions to civilian life.

For individuals to disarm fully and permanently, it is important that they manage to establish civilian livelihoods and find ways to reintegrate into social life. This can be difficult amid ongoing insecurity, structural barriers or other factors.

In Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon, for instance, the project found that individuals who left Boko Haram often felt physically threatened by their old group and faced significant obstacles in finding new income sources, partly due to restrictions on farming.

The concern with returnees who continue to feel unsafe after demobilizing or who struggle to meet their basic needs is that they may retain weapons to protect themselves or take up arms for their economic survival. Both outcomes can have destabilizing effects and undermine weapons collection programmes.

© 2015, ICRC/Jesus Andres Serrano Redondo

Measuring progress over time

Alongside its holistic assessment, a distinctive feature of the Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project is its longitudinal approach, following former associates and returnees for up to four consecutive years. This has allowed researchers to assess reintegration over time rather than through a single snapshot. It also makes it possible to identify factors that support or impede progress, such as receiving programming support or civil documentation.

The project’s findings confirm that reintegration is not an event but a long-term process shaped by individual, community and societal factors.

Disarmament and reintegration programmes therefore need to take into account what motivates individuals to disarm, their sources of resilience and the barriers that former associates may face for years after leaving their group, to better support them on their pathways away from conflict.

Addressing armed group recruitment to improve conflict prevention

Another important aspect of interrupting conflict cycles and preventing new ones from forming is to address the root causes of armed group recruitment and weapons proliferation. To better understand the drivers of armed violence, the project has collected robust evidence about people’s entries into armed groups. For instance, in a survey in the North East of Nigeria, around a quarter of respondents formerly associated with Boko Haram reported that they were promised something by the group when they initially became associated. These incentives included promises of economic well-being, but also education, a sense of belonging, assistance with marriage and safety from violence.

By unpacking the factors that influence recruitment, the project helps improve understanding of the root causes of conflict and supports partners in adapting prevention and peacebuilding strategies to people’s needs and realities on the ground. For example, the project has shown how climatic and environmental pressures can create conditions favourable to armed recruitment.

Across multiple surveys in the Lake Chad Basin, a notable percentage of former Boko Haram associates who reported climate-related livelihood difficulties before joining the group said that these difficulties played a role in their recruitment.

UNIDIR continues to explore the links between climate change and armed group involvement and behaviour to help identify emerging conflict risks and ensure that interventions remain responsive to changing conditions.

Through its holistic, comparative approach across multiple case studies, the project has shown that recruitment dynamics can be highly context-specific and vary significantly across settings. In Colombia, for instance, UNIDIR’s research found that some survivors of sexual violence from the Nasa Indigenous communities of northern Cauca joined FARC dissident groups in search of justice, in part because the mechanisms available in their communities failed to deliver justice and accountability for perpetrators.

The project works with local partners and communities across conflict settings to disseminate its research findings and supports them in adopting evidence-based approaches that respond to local needs. Its research contributes to improving understanding of why individuals enter armed groups and acquire weapons. This nuanced knowledge is crucial to inform and support conflict prevention initiatives, which are often underprioritized but vital elements of a comprehensive disarmament strategy.

© 2020, ICRC/Prichilla Absi

The two-way reality of reintegration

The reintegration of former associates of armed groups is not a one-way process. For them to return to civilian life, they need to be received and accepted by the communities to which they return. Given this reality, UNIDIR also gathers evidence about the lived experiences of unaffiliated communities affected by conflict.

This is important for two reasons:

1. It helps understand how communities are affected by and cope with insecurity and conflict, and how aid programmes can be tailored to address their needs and assist victims and survivors.
   
2. It provides a fuller picture of reintegration progress.

The project’s nuanced approach is essential in this regard, because although superficial measures of acceptance can seem high in some cases, qualitative analysis can reveal specific instances of rejection or discrimination against returnees.

In Iraq, for example, the high acceptance rates reported by Iraqi returnees from Al-Hol camp in Syria, who were often perceived to be affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, were not necessarily mirrored by the perceptions of community members living in the same areas of return to the same extent.

UNIDIR’s evidence can uncover specific barriers that need to be addressed by policies and interventions in conflict-affected communities to promote receptivity in practice. By underlining the importance of investing in returnees’ community entry and promoting social cohesion, this research helps strengthen reintegration support and the prospects of sustainable transitions away from conflict.

Evidence to inform policy and practice

The project builds on UNIDIR’s expertise in disarmament by taking into consideration the multifaceted dimensions of human security and integrating a people-centred approach to disarmament and reintegration programming. Through collaboration with UN, regional, national and local partners, the Managing Exits from Armed Conflict Project equips practitioners and policymakers with high-quality, evidence-based information that fills critical knowledge gaps.

Earlier in the year, the project was shortlisted for the first edition of the UN 2.0 Awards, which recognize UN system initiatives that are achieving outstanding results through new ways of working and new solutions.

UNIDIR’s work helps inform the international community’s design and implementation of effective interventions that assist individuals and their communities in transitioning away from violent conflict and building durable peace.

The post Championing a people-centred approach to disarmament and reintegration first appeared on UNIDIR.

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

The post New UNIDIR data dashboards released to better understand armed group exits first appeared on UNIDIR.

Meet UNIDIR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict (MEAC) team at the Peacebuilding Marketplace and explore the project and its evidence on journeys into and out of armed groups. Through research with former armed group associates as well as conflict-affected communities, MEAC generates context-specific insights to help policymakers and practitioners prevent recruitment, strengthen reintegration and interrupt conflict cycles. Its research across Colombia, Iraq and the Lake Chad Basin region sheds light on why people become involved with armed groups, what enables them to leave and what shapes their prospects for rebuilding their lives.

Reflecting the Forum’s theme, “Choose Peace”, the showcase will explore what is needed to make peace a reality for people and communities affected by conflict. Visitors are invited to stop by the MEAC stand, meet the team, explore its latest research and exchange ideas on translating evidence into more effective policy and programming.

When and where

Tuesday, 13 October 2026 | 08:30–18:00 CEST | Espace Ruth Dreifuss, Centre International de Conférences Genève, Geneva, Switzerland

Participants

The event is open to all registered Geneva Peace Forum participants.

RSVP

To participate, please register on the Geneva Peace Forum 2026 registration page.

Further information

For any questions, please contact Jessica Caus at jessica.caus@un.org.

The post UNIDIR at the Geneva Peace Forum’s Peacebuilding Marketplace first appeared on UNIDIR.

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. 

The post MEAC Expert Cross Case Study Workshop first appeared on UNIDIR.

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.

The post MEAC Evidence & Learning Conference first appeared on UNIDIR.