Messan Kounagbe is as a lawyer and currently serving as the Executive Director of Justice And Prosperity For All (JP4A), an NGO based in Benin. Their organization is dedicated to supporting poor and vulnerable individuals, as well as marginalized rural Indigenous communities, in their legal empowerment.
Messan speaking with community members in Benin
Hello, my name is Messan Kounagbe, and I am a lawyer currently serving as the Executive Director of Justice And Prosperity For All (JP4A), an NGO based in Benin. Our organization is dedicated to supporting poor and vulnerable individuals, as well as marginalized rural Indigenous communities, in their legal empowerment. We focus on several key areas, including housing rights, family and children’s rights, civil status and citizenship, land and environmental/climate justice, access to justice and health, gender equality, and addressing peace and violent extremism.
At first, our work on land issues focused on defending individuals, families, and groups to secure their land rights and ownership titles. But everything changed in September 2021 when the Benin government expropriated a coastal community of over 3,000 households that had lived there for over 200 years, without offering any rehousing or compensation. This injustice outraged me and pushed me to join forces with other communities facing similar eviction threats. Together, we fought back, and eventually, these communities — over 12,000 households — were granted land and funds to rebuild their homes. That experience solidified my commitment to land and environmental justice, and since then, we’ve been supporting many more communities in this struggle.
Since 2010, I’ve been working as a lawyer in a law firm. I noticed that over 85% of the cases were turned away because the people involved couldn’t afford legal fees. This troubled me and inspired me, along with other jurists, to create our organization. Our goal was to provide free legal support to these individuals, giving them access to justice. Over time, we started receiving more cases from certain communities, which led us to begin raising awareness within these communities to prevent disputes and address the injustices they face. Since we started this work in 2014, we’ve remained fully committed, and it is for life.
“As long as there’s something to do, nothing’s done,” we often say. In our work, we face the immense power of the state and the economic might of multinational corporations, who destroy land, pollute the environment, and worsen the climate crisis.
…we can’t give up. Our slogan is: “Justice begins where inequality ends.” As long as inequality and injustice exist, we have to keep fighting.
I invite network members to get more involved in all network activities—training, working groups, platforms, webinars, and physical exchange meetings. By doing so, you can gain knowledge to improve your organization’s work, build stronger relationships with other members, create partnerships worldwide, discover travel opportunities, access materials on the network’s platform, explore funding opportunities from the Legal Empowerment Fund if you submit a strong proposal, and share other funding opportunities through the network’s WhatsApp groups.
Messan in a strategy meeting with the community
In the just over 4 years I’ve been part of the network, we’ve not only shared valuable work experiences but also gained so much from being part of this community.