This policy document by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation discusses the contours of reconciliation as a framework for achieving sustainable peace. Drawing on experiences from the African continent over the past two decades, the paper outlines a future-orientated, gendered, locally-owned and comprehensive approach to reconciliation as a critical ingredient in various processes that form part of the post-conflict reconstruction and development agenda. these processes include conflict prevention, peace-making, negotiation, transitional justice and inclusive development.

Reconciliation is a contested and controversial term, but also one that continues to feature at many different levels globally. It features at community level, in national transitional justice processes, in legislation providing for processes and institutions of national unity and in visionary documents setting out a desired future. It is, for better and worse, a concept that will continue to shape peace-making for the foreseeable future.