Cairo, Egypt - CCCPA hosted the 13th Annual General Meeting of the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Training Group (IDDRTG) in Cairo from 22-24 May 2017. The meeting was held in collaboration with the Kofi Anan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC).

The meeting brought together members and strategic partners of the IDDRTG, including the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), Ecole de Maintien de la Paix (EMP), the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG) (via Skype), the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations-Office of Rule of Law and Security Institution (UNDPKO-OROLSI), the Swedish Armed Forces International Centre (SWEDINT), the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

The meeting was an opportunity to exchange views and experiences with regards to Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), and to discuss the planning, monitoring and evaluation of DDR programs. Members explored areas of cooperation and exchanged ideas aiming at enhancing the group's role in this field, as well as to improve training programs.

The meeting comes at a time when the Inter-Agency Working Group on DDR (IAWG) is carrying out a review of the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS). The updated standards are to consider the importance of evidence-based research, the integration of training impact and effectiveness in the monitoring and evaluation measures. As a group of leading organizations in DDR, the IDDRTG will assist in this review process.

Members of the group updated each other on their most relevant DDR training and research activities. The UNDPKO/OROLSI presented a progress report of its DDR efforts in UN peacekeeping and special political missions. 

Much of the discussion focused on the future of DDR programming in new hybrid environments. Counselor Ashraf Swelam, Director of CCCPA, emphasized the continued validity and importance of DDR in new challenging environments, but highlighted that the rise of armed groups with an extremist ideological background complicates future DDR program planning. CCCPA’s Preventing Radicalization and Extremism Leading to Terrorism (PRELT) program was discussed as a potential area of collaboration.

CCCPA proposed an initiative with the support of UNDPKO/OROLSI that aims at increasing national and regional awareness of DDR, Community Violence Reduction (CVR) and PRELT as tools of peacebuilding, as well as developing national and regional capacities to focus on the complementarities between them. Supporting the revision of the IDDRS is also a main objective of this initiative, which will help develop new guidance in new asymmetric environments.

This meeting marked the end of KAIPTC's term as the chair of the IDDRTG and the beginning of CCCPA's chairmanship for the year 2017/2018. EMP has been nominated as the new co-chair and host of the IDDRTG 14th annual meeting, scheduled to take place in Bamako, Mali in June 2018.