The discharge and rehabilitation process of former Maoist Army combatants began in early 2010 with the discharge of 4,008 verified minors and late recruits (VMLRs). A UN Interagency Rehabilitation Programme was established to provide support to these individuals in the form of counselling, training and supporting job placements. To date, notable progress has been made by this programme, in particular in the numbers of VMLRs making contact with the programme through the toll-free phone line and those referred on to training providers. However, a major shortcoming of the programme to date has been its ability to provide socio-economic support to clients in the post-training period.
One key actor that was overlooked in the design of the programme was the business community. Contact between the rehabilitation programme and business community at both the national and local levels has been limited and ad-hoc in nature, a major obstacle to the success of the programme in ensuring job placements, micro-finance and mentoring support to its clients.
International Alert is working to strengthen the socio-economic support dimensions of the rehabilitation programme through:
- Generating knowledge around local opportunities for rehabilitation, including attitudes of local business people towards supporting rehabilitation processes;
- Strengthening understanding and coordination between key stakeholders to the programme, in particular the government, private sector and UNIRP at both the local and national levels.