UNESCO, in partnership with the Government of Timor-Leste and the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC), brought together truth and reconciliation practitioners, historians, archivists, educators and policymakers from across the Asia-Pacific and beyond for the region’s first international conference on how truth, memory and justice can contribute to peacebuilding and reconciliation.
Dili, Timor-Leste – How can memory become a foundation for lasting peace? That question framed the International Conference on Truth, Memory and Justice for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation, held in Dili from 15 to 17 July 2026. It was the first conference of its kind in the region, co-organized by UNESCO and the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC), in partnership with the Government of Timor-Leste and with financial support from the Republic of Korea through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).
While many countries have established truth commissions or other reconciliation processes, opportunities to exchange experiences across the region have remained limited. The conference provided a platform for practitioners, policymakers and researchers to reflect on common challenges, compare national experiences and consider how lessons learned in one context can inform another while respecting each country’s unique history.
Opening the conference, Ms. Maki Katsuno-Hayashikawa, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Jakarta and Representative to Timor-Leste, reflected on UNESCO’s mandate to build peace through education, science and culture, noting that preserving the past means enabling societies to confront difficult truths and prevent the repetition of violence.
The struggle for peace is, in no small measure, a struggle to remember honestly — to confront the past with clarity and courage, so that societies do not repeat what they have chosen not to see.
Maki Katsuno-HayashikawaDirector of the UNESCO Regional Office in Jakarta and Representative to Timor-Leste
Reflecting on the broader dimensions of sustainable development, Ms. Youn Hwa Kang, Country Director of the KOICA Timor-Leste Office, highlighted the need to look beyond conventional measures of development.
Sustainable development is not measured only by economic growth or infrastructure. It is equally reflected in the strength of institutions, the knowledge passed from one generation to the next, and a society’s capacity to understand its past while shaping its future.
Youn Hwa KangCountry Director, KOICA Timor-Leste Office
Across three days, the conference examined how different societies have confronted difficult histories and explored how truth, memory and justice can contribute to lasting peace. Opening the substantive discussions, Prof. Bernard Duhaime, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, placed national experiences within the international framework for transitional justice, providing a common reference point for the discussion that followed.
Drawing on experiences from Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Republic of Korea, Canada and beyond, participants exchanged lessons on preserving historical memory, supporting survivors, managing truth commission archives, and strengthening education to ensure difficult histories are neither forgotten nor repeated. These comparative experiences confirmed that no single truth and reconciliation model can simply be transferred from one country to another. Each process responds to its own political, cultural and historical context, but sustained regional cooperation helps institutions learn from one another’s achievements, limitations and unfinished work.
Participants closed the conference by adopting a set of Recommendations calling for stronger legal and institutional safeguards for truth commission archives, survivor-centred reparations and psychosocial support, the integration of truth commission findings into formal and non-formal education, and sustained regional and international cooperation among truth commissions, memory institutions and educators.
Reflecting the conference’s shared commitment to translating these recommendations into action, H.E. Mariano Assanami Sabino Lopes, Vice Prime-Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Affairs, representing Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to implementing the recommendations of the Chega! and Per Memoriam ad Spem reports.
READ MORE: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/timor-leste-brings-global-voices-together-advance-truth-memory-and-justice?hub=701
