Empowerment and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

Abstract

This chapter examines the role that empowerment plays in post-conflict peacebuilding processes in Nigeria’s oil region. Based on empirical evidence, the chapter addresses the understudied problem of whether and how DDR programs empower former insurgents and the modalities and forms of empowerment. It powerfully shows the means by which ex-insurgents can be empowered—its various meanings and instruments—and how this is a central plank of post-conflict peacebuilding while at the same time showing the limits of this technocratic model of empowerment. The participants’ differing perceptions of empowerment and disempowerment as reflected in their understanding of the impacts of specific DDR interventions are discussed conceptually and analytically. The emphasis on power and how trust in the peacebuilding program is radically compromised by inefficiencies arising from poor DDR programming highlights some key findings in the author’s analysis that add substantial insight to this book.