The Transition and Reconciliation Unit (TRU) actively engaged with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and with relevant institutions beyond its life, so as to ensure that human rights abuses do not occur again, that a human rights culture is built in South Africa and that the victims of Apartheid abuses gain maximum benefit from their engagement with the TRC. The core of the work involved building sustainable reconciliation programmes, victim-empowerment programmes, policy development and research that can assist in achieving lasting reconciliation in South Africa. By 1999 the unit had streamlined its work into the Advocacy, Evaluation and Monitoring Programme and the Reconciliation and Victim Intervention Programmes.