Promoting Transitional Justice and Accountability in Africa

This policy paper examines justice and accountability mechanisms in conflict and post-conflict contexts across Africa, focusing on how states can deliver meaningful accountability while building sustainable peace. From Uganda's 20-year-long insurgency, which displaced 1.5 million civilians, to the genocide in Rwanda, which claimed 800 000 lives, to Sierra Leone's civil war, which occasioned the deaths of 100 000 people, to more recent conflicts in South Sudan, where over 400 000 individuals have died since 2013, Ethiopia's Tigray conflict, The Gambia's transition from dictatorship, and ongoing violence in the Central African Republic and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.3 Throughout these cases, six critical issues can be identified that threaten the effectiveness of justice and accountability initiatives.