Reintegration of irregular combatants. As indicated earlier in this paper, Sub-Saharan Africa has been characterized in recent years not only by a growing number of conflicts but also by the growing involvement of non-government forces and militias. Although the exact number of people involved in these irregular forces is difficult to determine, it is widely accepted that they now constitute a significant entity and represent a special threat to political stability in the region. Not only are they difficult to define in terms of their numbers, but they are also difficult to reach administratively and geographically. They may lack the cohesiveness that is usually considered to be one of the advantages of working with regular military forces and their command structures may be very different and less well defined than those of government forces. From the perspective of demobilization, irregular forces and militias thus constitute a special challenge. Their mobility within countries is such that in many cases they have lost contact with families and the communities they might otherwise be expected to integrate. Little is known about their educational background or about the type of training they may have received. Looking to them, as will be proposed below in the case of regular military personnel, as a potential source of information diffusion and as agents for HIV/AIDS prevention is likely to be far more complicated.
