Justice Africa’s approach is based on the belief that the greater inclusion of civil society in the implementation of conflict resolution and democracy holds out the promise of a more inclusive and sustainable transformation to peace. In order to achieve our aims, we ensure that our programmes are:

• Comprehensive: We believe that it is impossible to promote one aspect of peace and democratic processes in the absence of concern with other aspects. Understanding the larger context in which programmes will be implemented is vital to their success.
• Pro-Active: We develop long term strategies which enable local actors to be meaningfully involved in conflict prevention, peace building and democratic processes to ensure strong foundations and sustainable change for peaceful communities who are aware of their right to participate in decision making processes which affect them.

• Locally Owned: We design and conduct our programmes in consultation with all relevant stakeholders at every stage of project implementation. Justice Africa does not seek to determine the direction or activities of civil society organisations but rather seeks to bring them together in order to identify their own priorities, and then provide them with capacity building and technical expertise so that they can better engage with the priority activities they have identified.

• Impartial: Although we have links with all parties to conflict, which ensure our capacity to work with all stakeholders in seeking peace, we remain impartial and have only one objective: to sustain peace.

Working with civil society requires an incremental approach based upon building relationships, genuine consultations and close attention to the manner in which the process is driven by civil society groups themselves. Thus, by creating space for civil society to reflect upon their challenges and gradually build internal cohesion, Justice Africa has helped develop projects that are legitimately developed and led by civil society.