IV. THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY Many post-conflict or transitional societies would like to see the international community involved, primarily in the role of donor. Yet the international community rarely provides significant resources to finance reparations initiatives. The reason for this reluctance is twofold. First, given that reparations should always include an acknowledgement of responsibility, the international community has often argued that they should be primarily a local initiative. This is reasonable if responsibility for the conflict is indeed solely local, but more questionable otherwise. Second, given that implementing reparations plans always means taking sensitive political decisions, the international community has little incentive to get involved. However, international actors could: • Rethink their reluctance to provide direct material support to reparations efforts, particularly in those cases in which they themselves played an important role in the conflict; • Provide technical assistance in the design and implementation of reparations programmes; • Support local groups involved in reparations discussions;68 • Pressure multilateral institutions into fostering conditions under which post-conflict economies can afford to pay due attention to the victims of conflict; • Contribute to the external coherence of reparations programmes by providing advice to, and exercising pressure on, the different components of Governments, so that the reparations programme is appropriately linked with the various elements of a comprehensive transitional justice policy; 68 This is important not only because recognition requires participation and technical capacity on this issue needs to be strengthened all around, but also because, in the end, whether a reparations plan is implemented or not depends heavily on a political struggle in which the participation of local groups is imperative and they will engage more effectively if their capacity is strengthened. 39