Discontents and Resistance of ‘Unverified’ Ex-combatants and Challenges to their Rehabilitation in Nepal

Economic rehabilitation of ex-combatants, which plays a salient role in transforming ex-combatants into civilians, is a highly context-specific transformative process often taking place in post-conflict peace building. Its context-specific nature means that every rehabilitation programme is considerably different from the other. On one hand, there is a lack of understanding of the micro–macro factors and dynamics that affect the process and outcome of a rehabilitation programme; on the other hand, there is also a lack of an analytical framework that can be applied to assess the effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes. This article develops a four dimensional analytical framework which is applied to study the economic rehabilitation of verified minors and late recruits Maoist ex-combatants in Nepal. The framework is based on the data collected in eight districts of Nepal.