Nairobi, October 16, 2004 (SL Times) – Organizers and participants of a 12 day consultative meeting on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of combatants in Sudan have expressed their admiration of the success achieved by Somaliland in tackling the challenges of DDR without any external assistance more than 10 years ago.

The Sudan DDR workshop was held October 1-12 in Nairobi. Sudanese participants consisted of 2 core teams each comprising 12 members from the government of Sudan and the SPLM/A. The objective of the workshop was to provide these 2 teams with a comprehensive introduction to DDR planning, management and implementation.

The workshop was held as a result of a joint collaboration between IGAD’s Advisor on DDR, Mr. Jeremy Brickhill, and the UNDP’s office for Sudan DDR, headed by Philippe Gourdin .

The workshop used Somaliland’s experience in DDR as a case study. The Somaliland case was presented by Ali Guray, Daud M. Ghelle, Yusuf Abdi Gabobe and Boobe Yusuf Duale. Each of these DDR experts tackled Somaliland’s experience from a different perspective.

Other lessons learned from Africa included DDR experiences in Mali (Sidi Zahabi), Uganda (Major Christopher), South Africa (Brig Gen Rocky Williams), Sierra Leone (Leonard Biro), Rwanda (Ayan Batamuriza) and Zimbabwi (Nayasha Masiwa).

The Somaliland experience drew a lot of interest from participants as well as African and international DDR experts.

Somaliland’s reliance on its traditional structures and resources for the restoration of peace and establishment of a functioning government was seen as an important contribution and a lesson for the rest of Africa to benefit from.

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