ABSTRACT
The creation of sustainable livelihoods for conflict-affected individuals and communities is crucial for a successful post-conflict peacebuilding and recovery process. To ensure a successful recovery, excombatants, associated groups, and conflict-affected communities need to be involved in economically, socially, and environmentally feasible livelihood activities that will continue once external support ends. This requires a reintegration and recovery process that supports peacebuilding objectives and will continue beyond the initial post-conflict intervention.1 Such a process is especially important in countries where natural resource exploitation played a role in the conflict; research shows that in these cases countries are more likely to relapse into conflict within the first five years following a peace agreement (UNEP 2009). Economic opportunities and
benefits are also critical in areas where the lack thereof contributed to the rise in violence.
