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This chapter explores how marginalized youth, specifically former child soldiers in South Sudan, struggle to access education that is crucial in their reintegration process. The chapter draws upon data from a study focusing on the reintegration process of school boys formerly associated with armed forces and groups in South Sudan, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork including interviews and observations of 20 former child soldiers in Malakal, Upper Nile State. The study identifies a number of external factors that inhibit educational opportunities for the boys in their reintegration process. These are their life experiences, the impacts of war, their socioeconomic background and the lack of educational structures due to ongoing conflict. This study describes how the living conditions that motivated the boys to join the armed group are still present after their demobilization. Thus, they not only still find themselves in poverty but the time spent in the armed group and the impacts of war have put them in an even more marginalized position today than prior to their recruitment. The study argues that access to education is crucial in order to prevent recruitment and also re-recruitment to armed groups.

This study examines the cost-effectiveness of reintegrating ex-combatants from armed groups in Colombia. After an ethnographic exploration of the challenges of reintegration that ex-combatants face, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the reintegration program operated by the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (Agencia para la Reincorporación y la Normalización, ARN), the government agency that handles the reintegration of ex-combatants from all armed groups in Colombia. I analyze the agency's approaches (past, current, and proposed) toward reintegrating ex-combatants from various armed groups, comparing the financial costs against outcomes. The ARN has been successful at achieving two of its primary goals: minimizing recidivism and maximizing employment of ex-combatants. Only 10% of ARN program participants rejoin criminal groups and 93% find employment across both the formal and informal sectors (informal employment is widespread in Colombia and Latin America). The ARN has been unsuccessful at providing adequate security for ex-combatants. Approximately 6% of ex-combatants enrolled in the ARN program have been murdered since 2001: approximately 3,000 program participants have been assassinated. Next, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of both the ARN's overall program and its outcome across different regions and demographics of the participant population. Finally, I suggest ways that other countries facing the challenge of reintegrating populations of ex-combatants can learn from the Colombian experience, as well as ways that Colombia can improve its own reintegration cost-effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to deliver insight from the concept of destructive entrepreneurship to program design considerations in conflict regions.

This paper discusses and connects destructive entrepreneurship – an important yet largely unexplored question in the entrepreneurship literature – with security policy, related to evolving directions in the counterinsurgency literature and the traditional disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) literature.

Counterinsurgency is increasingly the approach used by international and domestic policymakers when dealing with regional conflict, and DDR processes have been used for decades to transition former combatants into civilian life. Three broad considerations are particularly salient (timing/sequencing/phasing, benefits and beneficiaries, and measurement) for DDR programs in the counterinsurgency context.

An incentives-based approach to understanding destructive entrepreneurship can provide useful insights for these two approaches and in particular, how they can be used together.

This paper expands the current scope of understanding of destructive entrepreneurship to the previously unconnected security policy contexts related to counterinsurgency and DDR.

The aim of the paper is to present some events in the life of ex‐child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in relation to the social policy in place and the social representation of child soldiers and childhood in the country. The paper presents an overall picture of the different interventions used with child soldiers in Kinshasa, some elements of the social representation of the child soldier, and finally three stages in a child soldier's life, which bring into question those representations.

The study used a qualitative approach including general informal observation, semi‐directive interviews, focus groups based on drawings and inquired‐investigator exercises with 45 ex‐child soldiers in three towns in DRC. Finally 12 interviews, based on the image classification exercise were carried out with Congolese adults belonging to the middle class in Kinshasa.

The paper suggests that child soldiers are represented as passive victims, while the reality of their life shows their capacity for action and decision.

Because of the continuing fighting inside DRC, part of the population is not accessible.

The paper includes implications for actions by the NGO sector or other kinds of aid organization.

First, the paper uses new tools for collecting data from children. Second, it presents a study of a subject that, whilst being widely popularized through the media, lacks adequate scientific research. Third, the paper brings into question the Western point of view of the experience of child soldiers.

The purpose of this paper is to identify optimum crew formations at unit execution level of repetitive projects that minimize project duration, project cost, crew work interruptions and interruption costs, simultaneously.

The model consists of four modules. The first module quantifies uncertainties associated with the crew productivity rate and quantity of work using the fuzzy set theory. The second module identifies feasible boundaries for activity relaxation. The third module computes direct cost, indirect cost and interruption costs, including idle crew cost as well as mobilization and demobilization costs. The fourth module identifies near-optimum crew formation using a newly developed multi-objective optimization model.

The developed model was able to provide improvements of 0.2, 16.86 and 12.98% for minimization of project cost, crew work interruptions and interruption costs from US$1,505,960, 8.3 days and US$8,300, as recently reported in the literature, to US$1,502,979, 6.9 days and US$7,222, respectively, without impacting the optimized project duration.

The novelty of this paper lies in its activity-relaxation free float that considers the effect of postponing early finish dates of repetitive activities on crew work interruptions. The introduced new float allows for calculating the required crew productivity rate that minimizes crew work interruptions without delaying successor activities and without impacting the optimized project duration. It safeguards against assignment of unnecessary costly resources.