Committing to Universal Legal Empowerment

A common thread formany challenges in the WANA region is that legal systems do not afford equal opportunity and protection to large segments of the population, most of whom are poor and marginalised.

In response, the development community has traditionally focused on strengthening state justice apparatus, such as legislative reform, training judges, and equipment provision. Over the last decade, however, there has been a shift away from such ‘top down’ approaches towards strategies that enable the poor and marginalised to use the law to advance their rights and interests, and exercise increased control over their lives. Such approaches are broadly referred to as legal empowerment.

While legal empowerment approaches have gained traction and support in many countries, in the WANA region, the concept remains broadly misunderstood and there is little comprehensive data on the legal empowerment environment in individual countries. Furthermore, little is known about the impact of interventions that do take place. The extent to which such approaches can be value-adding and what supporting measures or sequencing needs to be set in place requires further analysis. Until such questions are answered, legal empowerment represents a missed opportunity for addressing specific challenges confronting the region, including fostering equitable economic growth, facilitating responsive political reform, poverty alleviation and promoting conflict resilience.

Activities

• Development, testing and analysis of legal empowerment performance indicators in five WANA countries
• Comparative impact evaluation of 20 legal empowerment programmes in five countries that measures impact, highlights common challenges and identifies opportunities for enhanced performance
• Investigation into the potential utility of paralegal models as a means of enhancing access to justice for poor and marginalised groups
• Two-day regional conference for 75 policy-makers, civil society practitioners and justice sector actors on enhancing the impact of legal empowerment programming and to launch a Regional Legal Empowerment Charter
• Two-day regional conference 75 policy-makers, civil society practitioners and justice sector actors on paralegal programming and working with informal justice systems
• Two-day practical training for 40 civil society practitioners from ten WANA countries on legal empowerment programme design, monitoring systems and impact evaluation, e-learning modules launched
• Two-day practical training for 40 civil society practitioners from ten WANA countries on paralegal models and programming for engagement with informal legal systems, e-learning modules launched

• The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: Why goal 16 on justice is critical for the WANA region
• The Status of Legal Empowerment in Jordan: Evidence to Support the Post-2015 Development Agenda