Despite significant investment by governments and donors in many poor countries, development indicators remain abysmal. There is increasing evidence that strengthening the accountability of these services to local communities and end users can play a critical role in improving both access and quality. Innovations that provide people with more information about essential services and the ways in which they can participate in shaping how these services are delivered have been shown to improve development results. In rural India, “social audits” – the process by which details of the resources used by public agencies for development initiatives are shared with their beneficiaries – have been successful in exposing and recovering misappropriated funds and have consequently been incorporated into the national job creation scheme.
A recent randomized controlled trial found that a “community score card” intervention applied in health clinics in Uganda reduced child mortality by 30 per cent in one year. Such social accountability efforts tend to focus exclusively on the nexus between community and service provider or between community and local government, without the possibility of seeking remedies from the broader network of state authority when local pressure fails. On the other hand, while the protection of rights and the pursuit of redress is the core business of legal empowerment programs, those programs usually focus more on solving disputes and less on failures in public services such as health and education.
Our hypothesis is that a model that draws on the strengths of these two approaches – social accountability and legal empowerment – could better integrate accountability for service delivery into national governance structures and lead to significant, life-saving improvements in the delivery of essential services. Namati is engaged in a two-country experiment, which aims to explore the synergies between social and legal approaches to accountability for health services. Through our work in Sierra Leone and Mozambique, we hope to generate lessons that will inform and strengthen both government and civil society efforts on a broader scale. Specifically we aim to:
In both Sierra Leone and Mozambique, Namati and its partners are bringing together health workers, village health committees and community members to analyze aggregate data and encourage collective action, including compacts aimed at improving health service delivery outside of formal reporting channels. Namati has developed standardized case forms that are being used by paralegals and health advocates to document both individual and collective grievances. These are initiated by clients and collected during discussions with village health committee members, clinic staff, and community members. These forms are then entered into a central database, enabling comparative analysis within and across countries and communities.
Participants may enter the Grassroots Justice Prize by completing the application made available by Namati. Participants may submit an application by uploading required text document and photographs via email by following the instructions at https://grassrootsjusticenetwork.org/network/justiceprize. Namati may at its sole discretion extend the deadline(s) to receive nominations for the Grassroots Justice Prize by providing notice through its website or such other means as Namati may select.
Participation in the Grassroots Justice Prize is voluntary. No illegible, incomplete, forged or altered entries will be accepted. All entries become the property of Namati and will not be returned. All entries are subject to Namati’s terms of use.
Prizes are awarded to organizations whose work has been judged by a jury of legal empowerment experts to demonstrate innovation, impact, sustainability in the provision of grassroots justice programs. A prize of at least US$10,000 will be awarded to each of the three winning organization.
All taxes on awards and expenses related to the acceptance of the awards are the sole responsibilities of the winners.
Namati reserves the right to add additional prizes and/or increase the prize amounts without notification.
The Grassroots Justice Prize is open to any public or private organization (e.g. not-for-profit organizations, and non-governmental organizations, private businesses or academic institutions, other like entities properly registered under the laws of their respective countries). Organizations working directly with Namati are not eligible.
By participating in the Grassroots Justice Prize, each organization unconditionally accepts the conditions stated in these Official Rules, agrees to be bound by the decisions of the judges and warrants that it is eligible to participate in the Grassroots Justice Prize. Employees, independent contractors, officers and directors of Namati and the panel of judges of the Grassroots Justice Prize, and their immediate family members and persons living in the same household, are not eligible to apply for the Grassroots Justice Prize. THE GRASSROOTS JUSTICE PRIZE IS VOID WHERE PROHIBITED OR RESTRICTED BY LAW and is subject to applicable national, state and local laws and regulations. Eligibility is also limited to participants considered to be in good standing according to anti-terrorist laws of their respective countries and the United States.
Submission Eligibility. Any application, including any content therein, submitted in connection with the Grassroots Justice Prize (“Application”) will only be eligible if such Application (a) showcases grassroots justice or legal empowerment programs (b) is submitted during the Grassroots Justice Prize Period, (c) meets the application requirements, (d) contains only the original content of the applying organization, and (e) does not contain content that is unlawful, hateful or obscene. Namati reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify Applications which Namati determines at any time in its sole judgment to fail to meet any of these criteria.
By submitting an Application or otherwise transmitting stories, comments, pieces, ideas or other information in any form including, but not limited to, text or images as “Submissions”) to Namati, the participant hereby grants to Namati a worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, assignable, royalty-free right and license to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works based on, perform and/or display such Submissions (in whole or in part) in any media, for any purpose related to promoting and otherwise advancing the Grassroots Justice Prize, and/or Namati’s mission of strengthening the international movement of legal empowerment practitioners. Applicant organizations hereby acknowledge that to the extent that they include individually identifiable information in their Submissions, Namati may republish such information. Applicants agree to Namati’s use of an organization’s name, logo, stories and/or prize information for promotional purposes to the extent permitted by law.
The winners will be notified by either e-mail, telephone or regular mail, using the information provided when the organization entered the Grassroots Justice Prize, within three months of the Grassroots Justice Prize End Date. Such notification will include instructions for proper acceptance of the prizes. In the event a winning organization does not accept a prize, is ineligible or the prize or prize notification is not deliverable, an alternate winner may be selected. Namati is not responsible for and will not be liable for late, lost, misdirected or unsuccessful efforts to notify winning organizations.
By participating in the contest, Organizations agree that Namati, and the competition jury, and its agents, directors, officers, employees, insurers, affiliates, predecessors, successors, representatives and legal advisors (the “Released Entities”), are not responsible for, will not be liable for, and hereby disclaim all liability arising from or relating to: (i) late, lost, incomplete or unintelligible entries; (ii) electronic Internet, computer or other malfunctions or difficulties of any kind; (iii) failed, incomplete or delayed electronic transmissions; (iv) any condition caused by events beyond the control of Namati; (v) any injuries, losses, or damages of any kind arising in connection with or as a result of any prize, or any portion thereof that may have been awarded; or (vi) any printing or typographical errors in any materials associated with the Grassroots Justice Prize.
By participating in the Grassroots Justice Prize, participants agree to release, discharge and hold harmless the Released Entities, and all others associated with the development and execution of the Grassroots Justice Prize, from any and all losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind arising out of or relating to the Grassroots Justice Prize, participation in the Grassroots Justice Prize, any prize, or any portion thereof that may have been awarded, and/or acceptance, possession, use or misuse of any prize, or any portion thereof that may have been awarded, including but not limited to statutory and common law claims for misappropriation or the organization’s right of publicity.
By participating in the Grassroots Justice Prize, participants give Namati, the Global Legal Empowerment Network, and partners permission to use all photos, images, quotes, information, and content included in the application submission on their websites and social media channels, in brochures and graphics, and in any other print or digital format. This includes permission to edit and alter videos and photos, and shorten quotes or other written content. It is the participant’s responsibility to ensure they have the appropriate permission to use photos, videos, quotes, names, and information of all individuals represented in their application content, and the appropriate license from photographers to use, share, and alter any photos or videos.
Namati reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to suspend, modify or cancel the Grassroots Justice Prize should any causes beyond Namati’s control affect the administration, security, fairness or proper conduct of the Grassroots Justice Prize. In the event that proper administration of the Grassroots Justice Prize is prevented by such causes as contemplated above, Namati reserves the right to pick the winning organizations from all eligible, non-suspect entries received prior to such action.
The Grassroots Justice Prize will be governed by applicable law Issues concerning the construction, validity, and enforceability of these Official Rules shall be governed by the law of the District of Columbia. By participating in the Grassroots Justice Prize, participants agree that Washington D.C. courts will have jurisdiction over any dispute or litigation arising from or relating to the Grassroots Justice Prize and that venue will be only in Washington D.C.
Introduction and Overview of the Practice Guide
Large parts of the world, irrespective of their level of economic development, are on the cusp of severe environmental crises.
In these regions, the operations of extractive projects such as large-scale plantations, mining and industrial development have negated or worsened the economic, social and physical well-being of communities in their neighborhoods and beyond. Their robust national and regional laws and institutions for the protection and governance of the environment and natural resources have remained on paper and the non-compliance by governments and corporations has had profound effects on community livelihoods, health, access to land and quality of life.
Namati and CPR’s Practice Guide for Environmental Justice Paralegals is a step in the direction of closing this environmental enforcement gap.
The guide provides a methodology for community mobilizers, activists and citizens groups to shift their attention from stating the problem to getting grievances addressed by environmental institutions. The guide is based on four years of work done by the paralegals of CPR-Namati Environment Justice Program to assist affected communities file complaints and seek remedies in over 150 cases of non-compliance in India.
We hope that this guide will help local organizations and community groups to address environmental conflicts and seek useful remedies for affected people.
For more CPR-Namati environmental justice paralegal tools, click here.
This resource is also available in English, French, Oriya, Hindi, Gujarati, and Bahasa Indonesian.
Namati is an international organization that partners with civil society and governments around the world on implementation, research, and advocacy related to access to justice. To date, Namati has developed grassroots paralegal efforts with five countries in Africa (Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Uganda) and three in South Asia (Bangladesh, Burma, and India). Namati is currently experimenting with syntheses of social accountability and access to justice tools in hopes of generating improvements in the delivery of essential services. This resource describes Namati’s approach in Mozambique.
Community paralegal programs of different stripes exist throughout the world, and date back to at least the 1950s, when Black Sash and other organizations deployed paralegals to help non-white South Africans navigate and defend themselves against the apartheid regime in South Africa. In recent years, the paralegal approach has gained increasing attention from the international community. Despite this rise in attention, there has been very little systematic study of the workings of paralegal programs.
Namati is completing a six-country study of paralegal programs begun by the World Bank Justice for the Poor program. Our partners have completed research in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Indonesia, South Africa, Liberia and the Philippines. This study comparatively assesses paralegal programs’ impact on individuals, households, and patterns of local governance. It also assesses their scale, sustainability and their relationship to the state. The research draws on program case databases, interviews with paralegals, lawyers, program staff and other stakeholders.
The study is due to be finished soon, but three chapters are already complete, covering South Africa, Indonesia and The Philippines.
In the early 1980s Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia / The Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) began to train former clients, who were victims of human rights abuses under the New Order regime, to work as community paralegals. Additional civil society organizations began deploying paralegals in the 1990s, including Walhi, a major environmental network, and LBH Apik, Indonesia’s first legal aid organization focused on women. Today a coalition of organizations that includes these three is advocating for a legal aid act that would, among other things, recognize community paralegals as legal aid providers.
The World Bank Justice for the Poor program in Indonesia has engaged for several years in supporting and studying paralegals, and is our research partner for this country.
Paralegals first emerged here in the 1960s to assist non-white South Africans in navigating and defending themselves against the byzantine codes of the apartheid regime. Since 1994, South African paralegals have focused on areas such as pension benefits, the rights of people living with AIDS, employment issues, gender-based violence, and land restitution. In several ways paralegals in South Africa have progressed in the direction of professionalization and larger-scale organization: the National Alliance for the Development of Community Advice Offices (NADCAO) provides training and support to smaller paralegal programs; the University of Kwa Zulu Natal runs a degree program to train community paralegals; the national legal aid board extends resources, such as support from Legal Aid attorneys, to community-based paralegals. Legislation that would formally recognize the role community paralegals play had been tabled in parliament for several years and ultimately did not pass. A new framework for this legislation is being discussed by the NADCAO and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) is our research partner in South Africa.
The “people power” movement that brought down Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 gave rise to “alternative law groups” that use the law to pursue social justice. Among these groups’ core strategies is providing training and support to community paralegals. Like Indonesia, many paralegals in the Philippines are members of farmers’, workers’, and other membership organizations; they provide services voluntarily to their fellow members.
Paralegals and alternative law groups have translated their grassroots experience into policy advocacy, and have succeeded in shaping the substance of agrarian and labor reforms. Paralegals are also now legally entitled to represent fellow citizens in some administrative tribunals.
Hector Solimon, Jenny Franco, and Maria Roda Cisnero comprise our research team. Participating organizations belong to the coalition Alternative Law Groups.
Timap for Justice is a Sierra Leonean community-based paralegal program founded in 2004. In 2009, Open Society Institute and the Government of Sierra Leone agreed to develop a national approach to justice services based in part on Timap’s methodology.
Justice for the Poor Sierra Leone is our research partner for Sierra Leone. In conducting our study, we are also laying the foundation for a lasting mechanism for monitoring and evaluating justice services: a research methodology, a strengthened case database, a cadre of trained researchers.
Kenyan NGOs and faith institutions have trained community paralegals since the early 1990s. Most paralegals in Kenya work as volunteers. They address a wide range of justice issues, including land claims, inheritance, labor rights, and monitoring of government expenditure.
Africa Institute for Health and Development is our research partner in Kenya.
The Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, a Liberian human rights organization, in partnership with The Carter Center, began the Community Legal Advisor program in 2007. In addition, local and international organizations including the Norwegian Refugee Council, Prison Fellowship Liberia, the Sustainable Development Institute and The Foundation for International Dignity, operate similar projects in Liberia.
The Liberia chapter is based on empirical research by Bilal Siddiqi of Stanford University and Justin Sandefur of the Center for Global Development.
Namati’s Community Land Protection Program and partners use a five-part approach that supports communities to: proactively document and map their lands, strengthen local governance, seek formal government recognition of their land rights, and plan for the future of their lands.
This guide is an online version of Namati’s step-by-step Community Land Protection Facilitator’s Guide, which is available to download here. This online version splits the guide into sections and includes links to related resources. There is also a French version of the guide here.
Each piece of the guide exists because of hard-won lessons from implementation. We recommend reading the entire guide before beginning community land protection efforts because each step is inter-related. Namati encourages adaptation of this process – please share your experiences with us! If you have questions or comments about using the Community Land Protection approach, email communitylandprotection@namati.org
Namati has worked for over a decade to live up to the ‘empowerment’ side of legal empowerment. The question has been: how do we provide legal support to people facing injustice and do so in a way that builds their power, both individually and collectively? The result has been a gradual evolution that has come through experimenting with new ways to do casework, stopping to reflect on our impacts, and infusing our training for staff and partners with an orientation towards building collective power.
This publication marks a 12-year journey that Namati continues to travel, distilling and sharing learnings from Namati staff, partners, organizers, and communities along the way. In these pages you will find a synthesis of insights drawn from over 90 interviews with people in Myanmar, Kenya, and India who were directly affected by an injustice and partnered with paralegals to address it.
In addition to capturing lessons from individual justice seekers, the publication presents two case studies from Namati teams in Mozambique and Kenya. The case studies distill lessons from efforts to build community-driven movements capable of addressing the root causes of injustice. Together, they demonstrate what community power looks like in action. The chapters that follow first define how the legal empowerment cycle can build community power, then offer practical insights and hard-won lessons from Namati’s 12-year journey.
You can access the report chapters here:
This toolkit is designed to help CSOs, government, and other stakeholders to raise awareness about the law and help people understand what they need to do to register their community land. The toolkit will support anyone carrying out awareness campaigns on the law to understand what types of messages are most effective in communicating to communities. Namati tested messages on eight different themes: identity, development, colonialism, opposition, faith, comparison, democracy, and ‘take a chance’. Namati then got feedback on which messages people thought would be most effective. Eight focus groups and 10 interviews were conducted. Namati spoke to 61 people, including male and female community members, youth, and local leaders from a range of communities. The messages included in this toolkit were the ones that were best received by participants during our research.
Namati has also created:
By Foday Kamara
Published in the Nature Newspaper, Sierra Leone
28th February 2025
As part of heightening awareness of carbon credit as a source for revenue generation, on Wednesday 26th February, 2025, Namati and Invest Salone held a consultative meeting with stakeholders at the Freetown City Council Building to deliberate on the development of a robust carbon credit strategy for Sierra Leone. The engagement, held on the 3rd floor of the council building, brought together policymakers, environmental experts, Paramount Chiefs, civil society organizations and private sector representatives to explore opportunities within the carbon credit market. The engagement aimed to build awareness and foster collaboration among key players in the environmental and financial sectors to position Sierra Leone as a competitive participant in the global carbon credit trading system.
Discussions centered around policy frameworks, regulatory measures, and investment opportunities that could drive sustainable development while addressing climate change. Speaking at the event, the Director of Namati Sierra Leone, Sonkita Conteh, emphasized the importance of a well-structured carbon credit strategy in mitigating environmental degradation and promoting green economic growth.
“Sierra Leone has vast potential in the carbon credit market and through collaborative efforts, we can develop a framework that ensures transparency, sustainability, and economic benefits for our communities”
the Director stated. Speaking on behalf of his community people in Pujehan District, the Paramount Chief Member of the Parliament PC Saffa M. Tamu thanked Namati and development partners for engaging stakeholders on the importance of carbon credit trading and also organizations embarking on Forest Restoration and Palm tree plantation exercise which to him have created a lot of benefit to the various chiefdoms within Pujehan District by creating employment opportunities and large-scale Agricultural activity. He further emphasized that the proceeds generated from carbon credit, seven (7) chiefdoms normally receive the sum of $20,000 United States Dollars from the various companies working in his chiefdom and other chiefdoms in Pujehan District. He also continued that scholarships and other benefits have been realized by the community people. He ended by pleading to Namati and Invest Salone to create such engagement with landowners in the provinces to sensitize them about the importance of forest restoration for carbon production without causing harm to the environment.
Invest Salone underscored the role of the private sector in leveraging carbon financing to boost eco-friendly investments. “By creating an enabling environment for carbon trading, we can attract investors and contribute to the country’s broader climate resilience agenda”, says the Representative of Invest Salone. Stakeholders at the engagement discussed the need for clear policies, capacity-building initiatives, and mechanisms to ensure that carbon credit projects benefit local communities while aligning with global environmental standards. The event concluded with a call for continued dialogue and coordinated action to develop a carbon credit framework that supports Sierra Leone’s commitment to sustainable development and climate action.
Namati’s Community Land Protection Facilitators Guide is a step-by-step, practical “how to” manual for grassroots advocates working to help communities protect their customary claims and rights to land and natural resources.
Download the complete Guide PDF from this page. Or access the Guide as an online Toolkit to download individual chapters.
After years of working with partner organizations around the world to support communities to protect their land rights, Namati has developed a comprehensive, five-part approach that supports communities to: build unity and internal capacity for community land protection, proactively document and map their land claims, strengthen local governance, seek formal government recognition of their land rights, and plan for their own flourishing future. The goal is not just to protect land, but to leverage community land protection efforts to build:
The Facilitators Guide details Namati’s five-part process for protecting community lands and examines questions such as: “Who is included or excluded when defining a ‘community’?”, “How to resolve longstanding boundary disputes?”, and “How can communities prepare for interactions with potential investors?” The Guide goes beyond documentation to address issues of women’s land rights, inclusive governance, cultural revitalization, ecosystem regeneration, and more. Each chapter includes exercises, sample forms, and tips from veteran land protection advocates. All activities are easily adaptable to a range of cultures, contexts, and community goals. The guide is accompanied by short animated videos that demonstrate the community land protection process visually.
This Guide is intended for the directors and staff of local, community-based organizations, national civil society organizations, faith-based organizations, government actors, and other community land protection advocates and activists. The Guide refers to these groups as “facilitating organizations,” and their field staff as “facilitators.”
Namati recommends reading the entire Guide at least once before beginning community land protection efforts. Facilitators can then review specific sections of the Guide as they support communities to move through the process. However, because all the activities within each “step” are inter-related, it is best to be familiar with all the land protection activities before beginning facilitation.
If you are interested in implementing or adapting Namati’s community land protection approach, or to order a printed copy of the Facilitators Guide, please contact communitylandprotection@namati.org.
This guide has also been translated into French.