Countries in Africa’s Great Lakes region share the same colonial history and challenge of building a stable democracy from a legacy of violence and economic exploitation.

They also share modern histories of armed conflict, which are often interlinked and triggered by common problems like bad governance, struggles for political power, inequitable distribution of national resources, marginalisation and ethnic divisions.

Given the interconnectedness of violence in the region, each country’s attempt to tackle the root causes of conflict within its borders and provide justice to victims for past human-rights violations is linked to similar processes in other countries in the region.

For instance, it matters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo if the Ugandan government holds to account insurgents from the Lord’s Resistance Army or the Allied Democratic Forces for alleged abuses.

Because of this, when looking for ways to solidify peace and prevent further abuses in countries like Burundi and South Sudan, where vicious fighting persists and the threat of genocide remains high, efforts to deal with histories of violence that have taken place or are currently underway in the region can be instructive.

In the past decade, Great Lakes countries, including Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have paid lip service to taking concrete steps to deal with their legacies of massive violations of human rights. However, all too often their efforts to fulfil those commitments have been significantly delayed or contested, or simply not carried out with a genuine intention to succeed.

Those leading peace-building efforts in Burundi, the Central African Republic and South Sudan need to know what has worked well and what has not in promoting truth, justice, reconciliation and acknowledgement regionally. They should collaborate, share information and work collectively to ensure peace and prevent future atrocities.

One key issue is how much can be done when, and what conditions are necessary for success.

There is a school of thought that suggests there is special value in applying a combination of measures, including criminal prosecutions, a truth commission, reparation programmes, and reform of laws and institutions, at once in an “integrated” way. The argument is that, taken together, these measures add up to more than the sum of their parts.

But the “integrated” theory has often led to a one-size-fits-all approach to justice that does not ask the right questions about what fits the particular needs and circumstances of a society.

In countries like Kenya, for instance, where there has not been an effective political transition and where alleged perpetrators of human-rights violations still wield significant power, it may not be possible or wise to pursue an “integrated” approach. We have seen how political ambivalence toward one effort, like prosecutions, can delay or derail others that may be less politically sensitive.

Similarly, the lack of political will in Uganda to carry out official truth-seeking has contributed to delays in adopting a comprehensive national transitional justice policy.

Those working on these issues should consider, first, that it may be more pragmatic to adopt an incremental approach to justice, focusing on modest, but impactful, steps that can provide some effective, albeit partial, responses to victims in the short term and lay the foundation for future long-term efforts.

These include collecting and preserving information about past violations and community-based truth telling and memorialisation that honour the memory of victims, promote reconciliation and urge society at large to reflect on its legacy of violence.

At the same time, however, criminal justice, truth commissions, reparations and reform programmes should not be seen as substitutes for each other. They all do different things, in different ways.

Second, justice efforts are unlikely to succeed without the dynamic involvement and input of victims and civil society from the beginning.

Inclusive peace processes centred on victims’ rights, which consider the experiences and interests of affected communities, are crucial to finding lasting solutions to triggers of conflict and building sustainable peace.

Sarah Kihika Kasande is the ICTJ’s head of office in Uganda and an advocate of the High Court