Speaking to this reporter at NRS office in Banjul shortly after her audience with the senior management team, Dr. Proscovia Svard said she was in the country to learn more about the country’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC) as part of her research.
According Dr. Svard, she is interested in the documentation that the Gambia’s TRRC generated since it is an impartial historical record about the atrocities that were committed against the civilian population and required a lot of money to generate.
The documentation she added, should be used to create an understanding of the past to avoid regression to conflict, promote healing and reconciliation and to empower the people with knowledge to interrogate their government about the implementation of the TRRC recommendations.
“Additionally, the documentation should be popularized so that as many Gambians as possible can access the findings of the TRRC and that it should be used as an education tool to uproot impunity and to maintain the conversation of reconciliation in the public sphere since it takes time. This will require an information infrastructure that will manage the documentation in an effective way and maintain confidential information from that which should be put in the public domain for re-use to generate more knowledge by Gambians and researchers who might be interested in the work of the TRRC.”
The visiting associate professor applauded her hosts (NRS staff) for making her visit a success, adding that the people she met on the ground generously shared their experiences and information with her.
She highlighted that she has made similar visits to Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, in her pursuit of work on African TRCs and their documentation processes.
Dr.Svard’s research interests include enterprise content management, records management, information culture, e-government development, public sector information (PSI), long-term preservation of digital information, truth and reconciliation commissions and their documentation processes, the role of archives in enhancing accountability and transparency in government institutions, information access and the link to democracy and development.
