The Global Experience of Transitional Justice I will focus only on some of these challenges, starting with the political will to provide reparation. One of the main challenges from a victims’ perspective is a right, at the outset of a transitional process, to ensure that there is political will to acknowledge that a situation exists that calls for reparation, and that there are victims who have been harmed and are entitled to reparation. This political will needs to be sustained over time, as justice processes can take years to be prepared and implemented. In some countries, such as Rwanda, there was political will to ensure that reparation existed after the Genocide, but that has vanished over time without having been put into practice up to today. Making sure that governments have a willingness to provide a form of reparation accepted by victims will require continued pressure from civil society. The way in which a reparation process is managed, from the outset until its final implementation, has a significant impact upon the acceptance of transitional justice efforts by victims. Recommendations and promises to pay certain amounts of compensation to victims over a certain period of time, for instance, as in South Africa, need to be followed up and kept. In Rwanda, the government promised in 1996 that a compensation fund for survivors of the genocide would be established, but it has yet to deliver on that promise, leaving many survivors frustrated and dissatisfied with the other considerable and important transitional justice efforts undertaken by the government of Rwanda. So outreach and management of expectations are important. These, in turn, will require broad consultation with victims and communities, who need to participate in the process and be consulted about efforts undertaken to estab­lish justice mechanisms. This applies not only to reparation mechanisms but to tran­ sitional justice policies. Generally, victims must be real partners, not just bene­ ficiaries. Consultation with and the participation of victims and victims’ groups in the process are vital to ensure that their needs, rights and perspectives are adequately reflected in what is eventually established. In Peru, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission spent a year travelling through­out the country, holding over forty workshops with victims and studying reparation programmes in other countries so as to come up with a proposal that was feasible and that reflected, at least to some extent, the perspectives and needs of victims. In Rwanda, where reparation is high on the agenda of victims’ groups but not of the government, experts discuss how reparation can be provided on radio shows, where everyone has an opportunity to call in and ask specific questions or air concerns about the lack of reparation measures taken by the government to date. International Conference on Transitional Justice, Zimbabwe 25