Country Activities Home|Special Projects Home
Angola|Burundi|CAR|DRC|Namibia|Rep of Congo|Rwanda|Uganda|Zimbabwe

Special Projects: Burundi

Special Project to Support the Demobilization, Reintegration and Recruitment Prevention of child Ex-Combatants in Burundi — UNICEF
This project aims to achieve the following three objectives:

1. Demobilization of 90% (2,700) of all child soldiers that are currently part of the Burundian national army, the Gardiens de la Paix and the two rebel factions of Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye (CNDD-FDD) and Alain Mugabarabona (FNL-PALIPEHUTU) with which the government recently signed ceasefires.
2. Reintegration of all demobilized child soldiers into their communities within eighteen months, which will include: (i) preparation of communities receiving demobilized child soldiers; (ii) support to vulnerable biological families receiving demobilized child soldiers; (iii) support to community-based care arrangements for demobilized child soldiers without primary care givers such as through foster families and small children's homes; (iv) enrolling all demobilized child soldiers in appropriate education and learning pursuits; (v) support todemobilized child soldiers in need of special care, such as those who are HIV/AIDS-infected, severely traumatized, etc.; (vi) provision of community-based psychosocial support to address the mental health problems of demobilized children and their families; (vii) support to quick, high-impact projects for youth participation, such as involvement in community services, apprenticeships, small business, sports, cultural activities, etc.
3. Establishment and operationalization of mechanisms to exclude children from recruitment practices by all parties to the conflict within 18 months. This will entail the following activities: (i) sensitization and awareness-raising of military, rebel, and critical civilian stakeholders on the normative frameworks that protect children and criminalize their recruitment and participation in armed hostilities; (ii) formulation by the Government and rebels of credible and enforceable policies for the prohibition of child recruitment; (iii) monitoring of recruitment practices within the Government army, the Gardiens de la Paix, and by rebel groups to ensure that children are excluded.

Status: Grant Agreement between UNICEF and the World Bank has been signed. The first tranche of approximately US$1.7 million was disbursed in November 2004.
Amount: US$3,536,000

Review of Government child soldier program 157 KB

For more general information on Special Projects and their overall implementation status, please click here.