DDR stands for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration; this process aids in ensuring that members of armed forces and groups are directed to transition to civilian life rather than maintain their presence within armed forces, hence preventing conflict and the excess of weaponry used. However, before embarking on this process, one must first analyze the precise region they are working within and question: I.) Why have these armed groups come to fruition? II.) What political, social, or economic aspects have brought people to develop forces? III.) Are there cultural rationales for the existence of these groups? These questions will allow you to analyze the region you are working within and, thus, uncover how to employ DDR.

In DDR, a few key points to note: Trust-Building: DDR starts with building trust, a delicate process that takes time and requires a conducive environment. State Building: Prior to DDR, state-building efforts are necessary. The state serves as a neutral mediator and oversees the DDR process. Gradual Initiation: DDR is a gradual process, with stakeholders ceding power to the neutral governing body, the state. Facilitation: Initially, non-national or international bodies often facilitate DDR due to the conflict's complexities. Eventually, a shift towards local/national facilitation occurs as trust and cooperation grow.

One thing that could be helpful is exploring the cultural context of a situation, be that national culture or specific sub-cultures within the groups in conflict.

Multidimensionalism within DDR is absolutely vital. This aspect of DDR encourages inclusivity, participation, and collaboration among stakeholders across the globe. In addition, by involving a range of stakeholders within DDR, you also enrich the capability of your efforts to cover a broad range of topics, traversing from education, healthcare, water sanitization, gender equality, and sustainability, as the broad range of stakeholders you now have involved within multidimensional DDR, could cover any piece of these matters.

In order to enhance resilience and beneficiaries' capacities, conflict coaching could be used. Teaching specific skills that participants can use in the moment and over time will enhance the peace initiatives in question.

The ethical and privacy needs of stakeholders is of the utmost importance. Conflict will rarely be resolved unless trust is established. Having all parties feel safe and secure while engaging with difficult or sensitive topics will allow for the type of sharing and creativity necessary to establish lasting peace. Online dispute resolution scholarship is actively addressing these needs. It is a constantly-evolving process.

Ensuring that DDR is people-centered is crucial, as doing so fulfills the true purpose of DDR: to promote the sustainment of humanity's fundamental rights, such as education, justice, security, and health. Without having a people-centered form of DDR, the rights of humanity will fail to be placed as a central priority, and thus, this form of DDR will fail to bring true success.

As much as we should look at trends in peace building, these are actually not as important as learning what works, which often means looking to history. We know that the post-WWII peacebuilding in Germany and Japan had some of the most effective disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), that led to positive outcomes that have endured longer than most other DDR efforts, despite having as major of issues with culture, terrorism, and more in both situations. Yet there is no major book or research that dives into how these two countries systemically changed towards peace, when so many other times peacebuilding failed.