Spotlight

Reflections on impact: UN Special Procedure on extreme poverty and human rights

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, discusses how she has leveraged her position to strengthen the voices of those who are routinely ignored by their governments and the international community.

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Using Foreign Bribery Fines to Finance Legal Empowerment

Namati CEO Vivek Maru and Margaux Hall argue that fines collected for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) could be used to establish a multilateral financing mechanism for the direct legal empowerment of citizens worldwide.

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Timap for Justice Launches Community Paralegal Manual

Timap for Justice, a Sierra Leonean NGO and member of the Global Legal Empowerment Network that provides basic justice services, launched its manual for community-based paralegals. The manual draws on years of lessons learned and presents an effective model for paralegal training that can be applied to a variety of contexts.

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Kampala Declaration

The Kampala Declaration on Community Paralegals urges governments to strengthen access to justice and accountability across the continent by embracing the potential of community paralegals. From July 9-11, 2012, more than fifty organizations from twenty African countries met in Kampala, Uganda, where they debated and adopted the declaration.

The Kampala Declaration remains open for further signatures. Please contact [email protected] to add your organization to the list of signatories.

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A Letter to Rio+20: Sustainable Development Isn’t Possible Without Land Rights

Namati CEO, Vivek Maru, and Rights and Resources Initiative Coordinator, Andy White, argue that community land rights and protection are crucial to sustainable development. As it stands now, these rights are ommitted from the Rio+20 Conference Resolution, putting billions of vulnerable people further at risk.

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Latest News

• April 26, 2013

  Call for Applications: Middle East and North Africa Regional Meeting on Legal Empowerment

  Namati, The United Nations Development Programme, The Justice Center for Legal Aid, and the Open Society Justice Initiative are co-hosting a meeting for civil society organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. This meeting will offer legal empowerment practitioners the chance to workshop challenges facing their programs, learn from each other about diverse legal empowerment strategies employed throughout the region, and develop the basis for an ongoing, supportive network of legal empowerment actors. Applications are due May 6.

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  April 22, 2013

  Deep in the Cut: Reflections from Rivercess County, Liberia

  Gaurav Madan, Namati’s Community Land Protection Fellow in Liberia, reflects on his experience working with local communities and the Sustainable Development Institute to establish community governance structures, harmonize boundaries with neighboring clans, and build community capacity around land and natural resource management.

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  April 18, 2013

  Report finds legal empowerment approaches enhance accountability in land deals

  The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have released a new report exploring how legal empowerment approaches equip citizens and local communities to hold public institutions and private companies accountable in large-scale land deals.

• April 17, 2013

  Joint Statement: Global Strategies for Strengthening Community Land Rights

  In March, in Bellagio, Italy, Namati and a diverse group of development, conservation and human rights organizations met to develop a common framework for enhancing global and national actions to support community land rights, and to identify opportunities for greater coordination among leading civil society organizations.

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  April 16, 2013

  Urgent need for reform to prevent land ‘catastrophe’ in Africa

  Drawing on Oakland Institute research, Anuradha Mittal and Nickolas Johnson highlight several cases of large-scale land investment by multinational companies in Africa, including Addax Bioenergy in Sierra Leone. They argue that without significant changes in government policies and accountability, continued land grabbing on the continent will lead to ‘mass social unrest’ and long-term consequences.