Guidelines development for the unity and reconciliation policy implementation International Alert jointly with the national Unity and Reconciliation Commisssion (NURC) with support of Ikiraro Cyâ€™Iterambere completed phase one of Umurunga project which helped to identify key persisting and, in some cases relatively new, aspects of the reconciliation challenges in communities, which manifest in many ways and are   slowing the processes of unity and reconciliation ownership at community level. This was attached to the policy gap where it was found that key stakeholders , such as, ministries and government institutions, the private sector or civil society organizations (CSOs) that are not intervening in the field of peacebuilding do not understand their roles and have not made any efforts to adjust their interventions so that they contribute to unity and reconciliation process. Therefore, in partnership with the NURC, the core of phase II of Umurunga wâ€™Ubumwe, is to produce evidence-based guidelines for NURC on the best or better approaches enabling key stakeholders to own and implement the policy. To do this, projectâ€™s main outcome will be that public service providers, policy makers and other stakeholders have increased understanding of how to integrate unity and reconciliation policies and practices into their areas of work. The above outcome will be achieved, principally, by developing a set of context-sensitive and evidence-based guidelines for effective policy implementation, including tools and best-practice examples, which will be shared with the NURC and targeted key stakeholders. A key component of the project will be to draw learning and evidence from three forms of grassroots intervention: firstly, community-based reconciliation dialogues; secondly trauma healing counselling; and thirdly, supporting communities to make joint livelihood and or economic investments with aim to not only relieve poverty, but to bond participants, who have different experiences of the genocide, together in relationships of interdependency. This project has 2 strategic objectives:
1) Strategic objective 1: A series of context-sensitive and evidence-based practical guide-lines and policy briefings is produced, disseminated and used by key actors. 
This objective will be achieved through 3 strands of outputs:
Output 1: District and national actors are engaged to identify key challenges, gaps in understanding and impediments to effective implementation of unity and reconciliation
Output 2: A series of context specific and evidence-based policy briefings and best-practice guidelines are produced in digital and hard formats .
Output 3: Context-sensitive and evidence-based policy briefings and best-practice guidelines are shared with key actors and monitored for uptake and outcomes .

2) Strategic objective 2: An evidence-base is produced giving new insights into the role of 'psychotherapy for trauma healing' and sustainable livelihoods for poverty reduction' interventions on local-level social cohesion; and the relationship/interaction between them.
This objective will be achieved through 3 strands of outputs: 
Output 4: Action Research-Community dialogues and therapeutic sessions are implemented, monitored and evaluated to produce insights on their effects on social cohesion.
Output 5: Action Research: Saving groups established, monitored and evaluated for their success in connecting and building bonds between people affected by genocide. The key targets of this project at community level are young men and women and older people from different backgrounds: genocide survivors and their descendants, ex-prisons and families who still have relatives in prisons, children born out of rape during genocide against the Tutsi, historically marginalized people, ex-combatants, and returnees from neighboring countries. In terms of age, the project target population is split into two age brackets such as youth between 20 and 30 years as per the Rwandan youth policy (16-30 years). Those in this age bracket are the majority of beneficiaries (60%) because this project was designed mainly to respond to the challenges that the youth are facing. For example, many youths have problems relating to trans-generational trauma and identity crisis, a high percentage of incidences of genocide ideology and ethnic stereotypes have been found among youth. The rest of the project target group are aged between 31 and 55 years, people in this age bracket were too young or almost young during the 1994 genocide against Tutsi and this is a category of Rwandan population where can be found genocide perpetrators and are high risk to transmit trauma, hatred and the legacy of negative ideologies hindering unity and reconciliation. In addition, a significant number of this category are in decision-making positions at both community (local leaders and opinion leaders) and national level. So, these categories were considered to participate in the project to bridge the gap between two different generations through learning how inter-generational trauma and legacy of genocide ideology can be prevented from parents to children. This project aims to contribute to the sustained social cohesion in Rwanda by improving mainstreaming of unity and reconciliation policy and practice throughout key stakeholders ministries. To do this, itâ€™s main outcome will be that public service providers, policy makers and other stakeholders have increased understanding of how to integrate unity and reconciliation policies and practices into their areas of work.