The 2014 WANA Forum focused on the important role the legal empowerment of the poor can play in combating poverty. Today, over 4 billion people in the world – over half the world’s population – are excluded from the mechanisms that can help them gain access to the rule of law. Most of these people belong to the most vulnerable segments of the population, including women, children and minority groups.

The situation is especially pronounced for countries from the WANA region, where weak GDP growth, high inflation and low employment rates have served to increase the number of people living below the poverty line in the last three years.

The 2014 Forum brought together justice sector employees, NGO and legal aid workers, academics, religious scholars and legal empowerment practitioners, in an attempt to consider the conditions required to bring about a fundamental and transformational reform of legal systems in countries across the WANA region. Key note speeches were given by HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal and Dr. Faustina Pereira (BRAC, Bangladesh).