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This paper assesses the impact of the demobilization, reinsertion and reintegration program in post-war Burundi. Two major rebel groups benefited from cash and in-kind transfers, the CNDD-FDD from 2004, and the FNL from 2010. A panel data of households collected in 2006 and 2010 is combined with official records from the National Commission for Demobilization, Reinsertion and Reintegration. Regression analysis shows that the cash payments received by FNL demobilized households had a positive impact on consumption, nonfood spending and investments. The program also generated positive spillovers in the villages where FNL combatants returned. Ex-combatants indeed spent a large part of their allowance on consumption goods and clothing, thereby generating a short-run economic boom in villages. However, the long-run evolution of consumption indicators is negative for CNDD-FDD households, as well as for villages where CNDD-FDD combatants returned, suggesting that the direct impact and the spillovers of the program vanished in the long run.

This article introduces the special issue on DDR and 'Armed Non-Statutory Actors' (ANSAs) which we prefer to the less precise label of Armed Non-State Actors. The understanding that disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programs are essential in helping to prevent the recurrence of war in post-conflict situations is at the heart of current peacebuilding practice and the academic literature on peacekeeping and stabilization. But the changing strategic context of DDR programs and in particular the proliferation of ANSAs presents new challenges, the responses to which have been characterized as 'second generation' DDR. The changing context poses new questions and forces us to rethink assumptions and templates of DDR as the concept is blurred and expanded. The question is if it makes sense to hold on to the concept or whether the assumptions associated with it will get in the way of rethinking templates for violence reduction in the future.

Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, or DDR, has been widely advocated for decades as an essential component of postconflict peacebuilding. But DDR in practice has generated more questions than answers. Does the approach work, contributing to postconflict stabilization and the reintegration of former combatants? Can it work better? What constitutes success? What accounts for failures? Do the potential risks outweigh the potential benefits? Drawing on his extensive experience in the field, Desmond Molloy considers these questions and more as he traces the evolution of DDR theory and practice from the mid-1980s to the present