SECOND SESSION Ÿ Panel Discussion: From Policy to Practice Introducing the Dealing with the Past Framework and the African Union Model Policy (Annah Moyo CSVR, Koata Aleer –African Union Commission Department pf Political Affairs and Jackson Odong – Makerere Law Centre). To borrow lessons from regional and international experiences relating to transitional justice policy development and implementation, there was a panel discussion focusing on the African Union TJ policy. The AU transitional justice policy is a non-binding continental mechanism guiding AU members states emerging from violent conflicts and dealing with addressing past legacies of violence. Ÿ Ms Moyo highlighted that in developing the AU transitional justice policy, five observable crucial components included; enough involvement of members states and citizens, developing collective ownership, drafting the policy in the language understood by target audiences, publicizing the draft policies as much as possible and ensuring that connections and networks developed during the drafting process are utilised when implementing the policy. The presenter shared that there is need to talk about implementation of the policy from the beginning and ensuring constant popularisation of the draft policies to legislators and other different stakeholders. Another presenter, Kloat Aleer also noted that the AU transitional justice policy seeks to address governance deficits and developmental challenges with a view to advancing the goals of Agenda 2063, the Africa we Want. 14 Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ There are countries such as Mali and South Sudan that are already using the AU transitional justice policy to shape their own national processes which Zimbabwe could also draw lessons from. The AU policy on TJ also takes into consideration traditional mechanisms and the involvement of non-state actors There is need to include monitoring and resource mobilisation mechanisms in the policy document to avoid operational challenges. The AU policy also provides different mechanisms for transitional justice which member states can contextualise to suit their own needs. There are themes that are cross cutting such as gender and women. Knowledge management and advocacy form key components of the AU policy. Monitoring and Evaluation is a strong feature of the policy. Lessons from Uganda were also drawn from Jackson Odong’s presentation. Jackson indicated that Uganda's TJ policy was crafted with competency, albeit that it took a long time to be finalised. However, the country's implementation process of the TJ policy leaves a lot to be desired. There is need to always consider implementation questions during the policy design process to avoid operational shortcomings. Odong pointed out that for a TJ policy to succeed, fundamental questions must be asked, and this was: Will the policy proposed be able to resolve the following: Ÿ Order Ÿ Human dignity Ÿ Human rights culture Ÿ Nurture democracy A key feature hat was present in the Ugandan model was the development of a Compendium on Conflicts. 2018 TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE POLICY SYMPOSIUM REPORT