Practitioners’ Guide for Unarmed Civilian Protection in Cameroon

This guide is designed to provide some practical tips to local unarmed civilian protection (UCP) practitioners, who shape and lead interventions to protect civilians in their communities, as well as UCP organisations that engage regularly in conflict situations to protect civilians at risk. This guide will help those interested in UCP engagements to better establish conditions for successful unarmed interventions to protect affected civilians in times of conflict and violence. It will also help readers to highlight practical lessons relating to the use of UCP strategies. We believe the guide provides best practices and guidance that can be built upon or replicated in diverse situations. Nonetheless, we do not present these ideas as exhaustive since some differences or variations are likely to occur depending on the context wherein UCP is implemented. Information in this guide is drawn from empirical research conducted in February 2023 on the experiences and proactive UCP strategies employed by affected civilians, groups and organisations in the Anglophone conflict in Cameroon, and supplemented with scholarly and grey literature. This guide is written primarily for: • Individuals and organisations that have been actively engaged in protecting civilians in conflict situations. • Policy makers who are seeking to support recovery in conflict-affected communities and protect civilians. • Academics who are engaged in training UCP practitioners. The guide is organised into six main sections. Section one presents the purpose, scope and background of the guide. Section two provides an overview of UCP. Section three discusses the strategies and activities that can be used to protect civilians. Section four focuses on the design and implementation of UCP interventions. Section f ive examines the outcomes of UCP interventions, while section six concludes with final reflections and thoughts. Readers can refer to a specific section for information or go through the entire guide when preparing or reviewing their intervention programme.