Championing Transitional Justice in Africa

Established in 2019, the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund is a response to the growing desire for African solutions to African problems rooted in shared experiences. The Fund is part of a larger continental support strategy by the MacArthur  Foundation and WellSpring Philanthropic Fund to promote African-led transitional justice efforts in the region.      

Following the adoption of the AU Transitional Justice Policy (AUTJP) in 2019, the Fund was established to ensure that the Policy achieves its objectives of putting African communities and countries on the path to sustainable peace, justice, reconciliation, social cohesion, and healing after experiencing mass atrocities.  

The multi-year, multimillion-dollar Fund strengthens civil society’s capacity to engage with and advocate for national and regional transitional justice processes in Africa. Specifically, the Fund supports initiatives that seek to achieve truth, justice, and accountability for crimes and human rights violations in societies experiencing or transitioning from conflicts and dictatorships.

Since its inception, the Legacy Fund has evolved in its nature as an entity and in its scope. Initially, a three-year project of the Ghana-based Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), the Fund has become an institutionalized nine-year fund incorporated in 2021. Despite the evolution, the Fund’s commitment remains unchanged.

Through community-based initiatives and empowering survivor-led groups, ATJLF rebuilds communities and reactivates the agency of victims and survivors in transitioning societies. Since 2019, a total of $2,531,300 has been disbursed to forty-six (46) institutions of varying sizes across West Africa. This is in addition to establishing strategic partnerships with the African Union and other regional bodies.

The Fund’s activities have so far focused on West Africa, specifically, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, northern Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. These countries share contexts of unaddressed justice issues related to recent and current atrocities with credible opportunities for locally defined comprehensive justice that includes economic reparations.

As the Fund embarks on its legacy phase (2024 – 2026), its transitional justice grant-making expertise will expand beyond West Africa through the Initiative for Transitional Justice in Africa (ITJA). The Fund’s core operations will also prioritize more long-term engagements with a smaller number of entities who have demonstrated potential for transformation and sustainability. In the lead up to 2026 when the Fund reaches its definitive sunset, ATJLF is committed to working assiduously with its grantee partners to ensure that their projects, their impact, and organisational viability outlives the existence of the Fund.