The Global Experience of Transitional Justice Leone, where the UN Peacebuilding Fund and UN Women have contributed funding to a reparation programme targeting particularly amputees and victims of sexual violence. Some lessons learned and conclusion A decision to provide reparation to victims of human rights abuses can be challenging, and designing an inclusive reparation mechanism in the context of transition will raise complex questions. Arguably, we need some form of, or at least indications of, transition to address these questions. Some of the main lessons learned from past and ongoing transitional justice processes in South Africa, Morocco, Peru, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Chile include that reparation programmes are an important and indispensable feature of any transitional justice process that will require extensive outreach to, and consultation with, victims so as to take their needs and perspectives into account and manage expectations. It is crucial that victims form part of the design of transitional justice mechanisms – including, in particular, women, who have often been targets of human rights abuses but may play only a marginal role in society – as otherwise their perceptions and needs will not be reflected adequately. The scope of the outreach will impact on the scope of a reparation mechanism, the needs of a reparation policy and the methods of implementation. Irrespective of whether the emphasis is on prosecution or truth-telling, reparation for victims should be an equally important component of a transitional justice policy as it has a direct impact on victims. It would also be wrong to argue that reparation is something that is available only in rich countries and cannot be afforded by poor countries, given the limitations of resources. In the end, it is a matter of priorities and of how the resources available are distributed. Where a transparent and inclusive reparation programme is designed, funding from the international community can become available, such as in Sierra Leone and Morocco. For reparation to be meaningful in transitional justice processes, it is increasingly being recognized that they need to be transformative; for instance, they need to be gender-sensitive as well as culturally sensitive. Last, but not least, no single form of reparation will suffice, and a combination of reparation measures will usually be required to complement prosecutions and/ or truth commissions and to address the often wide-ranging consequences of extensive human rights violations. International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe 29