Gambia’s transitional justice experience: Opportunities and lessons for a closer partnership between the AU and UN Peacebuilding Architecture

Presented at the joint Amani Africa, PSC Chairperson for November 2025, Republic of Cameroon, and UNOAU policy dialogue on ‘State of Peacebuilding in Africa: opportunities for a closer relationship between the African Union and the UN Peacebuilding Architecture’ held on 18 November, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

By SALIMATTA TOURAY, Permanent Representative of The Gambia to the African Union and member of the Peace and Security Council

 

Excellency Ambassador Churchill Ewumbue-Monono, Ambassador of the Republic of Cameroon and Chairperson of the PSC for the month of November,

Excellency Elizabeth Mary Spehar, Assistant Secretary General for Peacebuilding Support,

Representative of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to the AU and head of UN-OAU,

Excellency Ambassador Erastus Ekitala Lokzale, Permanent Representative of Kenya to the UN,

Excellency Ambassador Ricklef Johannes Beutin, Permanent Representative of Germany to the UN, and Chairperson of the Peacebuilding Commission

Dr. Solomon A. Dersso, Founding Director, Amani Africa Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

Firstly, allow me to extend my warm congratulations to you, Chairperson for the month of November 2025, the Republic of Cameroon, the UN Office to the AU (UNOAU) and Amani Africa for convening this high-level policy forum on the ‘State of Peacebuilding in Africa: opportunities for a closer relationship between the African Union and the UN Peacebuilding Architecture’. The outcome of today’s forum will complement and guide the joint peacebuilding work undertaken by the AU PSC.

It is therefore my honour to address you today on the significant peacebuilding journey undertaken by The Gambia since 2017, under the auspices of the United Nations Peacebuilding Programme. Our nation has made notable strides, focusing on a transition to democratic governance and the establishment of transitional justice mechanisms, with invaluable international support.

In The Gambia, we are implementing peacebuilding through a transitional justice programme that happens to be the most holistic transitional justice programme globally, and perhaps in this regard, The Gambia is challenging us all to think differently- more broadly, innovatively and intentionally- about local, regional and international partnerships- for more robust coordination, resource mobilization and implementation of national reform programmes in post-conflict settings.

Main message: The Gambia’s transitional justice experience demonstrates complementarity between the UN, AU and even ECOWAS’ peacebuilding architectures, but also provides valuable lessons

learnt around coordination.

I will not delve into ECOWAS’s contributions to peace, security and peacebuilding in The Gambia, but it goes without saying that in the case of The Gambia, ECOWAS’s strict coercive diplomatic means directly led to peacefully resolving our political impasse in December 2016, and was able to do so whilst equally abiding by United Nations Charter and prohibition to use of force principle.

ECOWAS’s intervention has served as the bedrock upon which all other transitional justice and peacebuilding efforts being undertaken by the UN and AU are built.

Today, ECOWAS also continues to stabilize, and augment to capacity of the security sector through the ECOMIG forces, and in more recent times, the approval of ECOWAS Heads of States to establish a Special Tribunal for the prosecution of international crimes committed in The Gambia between July 1994 and January 2017, directly enables attainment of transitional justice peacebuilding.

The Gambian experience demonstrates that the legitimacy of regional and international organizations is not a zero-sum game. Rather than competing for legitimacy, the UN, AU and ECOWAS complement each other, leveraging respective strengths, convening powers and capacities to address shared security challenges.

The Gambia encourages synergy and cooperation between global organisations to create more robust and inclusive security framework capable of handling the complex security issues of the twenty-first century. I will now focus on how the AU and UN have worked collaboratively, and complementarily in The Gambia on transitional justice:

Firstly, on sustaining political support for, both the UN Peacebuilding Commission and the AU Commission have exercised their convening powers for The Gambia and have provided several strategic platforms to the Government of The Gambia to engage with Member States.

The PBC and the AUC frequently inviting the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, and Ambassadors at the UN and AU to engage in high-level discussions on our processes. These in several instances has equally invited our civil society organizations, led to further bilateral engagements with Member States, the exchange of experiences and knowledge and the successful mobilization of financial contributions.[1]

On the elaboration of national plans and strategies, the Gambia’s transitional justice model has been heavily influenced by both the Secretary General’s Guidance Note on Transitional Justice, as well as the AU’s Transitional Justice Policy, with technical assistance and advice having been consistently available to the Government through the UN and AU’s respective departments of political, peacebuilding/security affairs.

While international organisations like the UN and AU provide a forum for multilateral cooperation and diplomacy, the AU and ECOWAS have provided a more localized approach to transitional justice and security governance, adapted to the unique requirements and dynamics of our individual Gambian context. This complimentary nature has promoted a unified and inclusive framework that supports a broad range of perspectives and notions.[2]

When it comes to the operationalization of transitional justice mechanisms and processes, both the UN and AU have provided technical and financial support through a variety of facilities: The UN Peacebuilding Funds, which has demonstrated the ability to provide swift, immediate relief to the Government through catalytic funding only 4 months into the transition in May 2017- has Programmatic funding channeled through implementing agencies- UNDP, OHCHR, the International Center for Transitional Justice etc. Between 2017 and 2022, the PBF provided such support in the country through 16 projects and a total investment of USD 30,913,673.

The AU Technical Support to The Gambia was a pragmatic initiative launched in 2018, that seconded 10 of the continents top experts in rule of law, democracy, transitional justice and security sector reform to Government ministries and national institutions, providing strategic advice and mentorship over 1 to 2 years.

More recently, in 2024 and 2025, the AU-EU Initiative to Transitional Justice in Africa has equally deployed 2 experts upon the request of the Government of The Gambia for the newly established Reparations Commission, in policy development and strategic communications.

The Gambia looks forward to engaging with the AU Peace Funds in the near future, to push the transitional justice agenda to a logical conclusion of at least, the full operationalization of a reparations programme and prosecutions in The Gambia.

Excellencies our process has not been without challenges, and we have learnt hard lessons:

At such a nascent and highly unstable stage of our transition comes one of the most difficult technical demands of transitional justice- the design of a programme, sincerely informed by a unique national context and embraced by national and local ownership. A delicate balance must be struck between the goodwill of external advisors and experts, which may not always be in line with national or local priorities.

This was The Gambia’s experience, specifically in security sector reform, whereby weak national coordination and contradictory advice of various advisers from the UN, EU, ECOWAS and AU, led

to wastage and created confusion and rather than propel, stagnated the elaboration of national plans and strategies. Transitional justice programmes cannot be divorced from the national development agenda, and therefore, technical assistance facilities can prove to be more useful when designed to accompany mechanisms and processes with a focus on the post-conflict environment of reconstruction and development agenda.

In this regard, the role of international financial institutions and facilities, such as the EU and World Bank budget support programmes, should equally be understood as complementary to the peacebuilding efforts of international and regional organizations such as the AU and the UN, as the formulation of budget support indicators should mirror critical transitional justice objectives and milestones. Equally, the important role of CSOs in supporting transitional justice processes from design to implementation, cannot be overstated.

In light of the stated challenges and lessons learnt, we would like to offer the following recommendations around coordination.

In a climate of shifting global financial and political dynamics, whereby peace and security challenges are both increasing and evolving, further stretching limited resources, the onus remains on Governments to establish from the onset, robust frameworks for coordination with UN, AU and other international and regional actors, including IFIs and civil society, supported by monitoring and evaluation approaches to ensure accountability and responsiveness.

We have learnt in The Gambia that local and regional organizations exhibit a higher level of ownership and legitimacy since members participate more directly in decision-making and implementation methods. Beyond ownership, grassroots approaches to transitional justice develop a sense of accountability, hence increasing the overall legitimacy of transitional justice activities.

Thus, The Gambia is operating as an incubator for novel approaches to transitional justice and security governance, which has also been influenced by global standards of practice, but also now, contributing to that global discourse.

A missed opportunity and strong recommendation for other countries in pursuit of peacebuilding, is that robust coordination framework should be designed from the onset to play an important role in bridging the gap between global security standards and local realities. The UN and AU with their far reaching networks are uniquely designed to support government-led coordination efforts.

Excellencies,

In conclusion, now, more than ever, we call upon our partners in the international community, regional organizations, and all stakeholders to stand with The Gambia. In this regard, I would like to convey the Government of The Gambia’s thanks and appreciation to ASG Elizabeth Spehar and Ambassador Monono for their invaluable technical and financial support. Let us renew our commitment to peace, justice, and inclusive development. We urge you to continue your support—politically, technically, and financially—to ensure that the gains we have made are not only preserved but built upon.

Together, let us work to transform challenges into opportunities, foster unity, and secure a peaceful and prosperous future for all Gambians.

Thank you.

[1] We have received bilateral contributions from Ireland (approx. $400,000 channeled through UNDP for victims and survivors of SGBV), Switzerland (several grants to Gambian CSOs, at least $200,000 worth since 2017, prioritizing victim and women led organizations) just to name a few.

[2]  If looking for examples of how The Gambian TJ model is so “Gambian” you can cite how we started the entire process of designing our TJ model by holding intensive, inclusive national dialogues, consultations and conferences (from May to December 2017, and we continue to employ a very consultation approach in the continued design of TJ- for example in the design of the Victims Reparations Act in 2023 and as we continue to design the Peace and Reconciliation Commission Bill). The outcome of these discussions have been listened to, translated into tangible laws, policies and strategies, and complemented by lessons learnt from other contexts such as Sierra Leone and South Africa. So, in the TRRC Act for example, the nationality of Commissioners being restricted to Gambians only, but reflecting all ethnic, gender, age and geographical differences of people- was as a direct result of the outcome of local consultations. The fact that the Commission was granted the powers to provide interim reparations too was a result of consultations with the victims, and lessons learnt from other places such as South Africa and Sierra Leone, whose reparations programmes stall to date.