In 2013, Duah village in Liberia faced a serious challenge. Private company Lion Growth Ltd. was interested in the acquisition of Duah customary land. Duah’s local leaders struck a deal with the company without consulting the community. As a result, Duah community mobilised and rallied around their new mechanisms for inclusive, participatory land governance and, with the support of Namati and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), held their leaders accountable. The community convinced their elders to cancel the deal, and this victory protected the Duah’s customary land and livelihoods and legitimised the community’s new participatory, people-focused land governance system.
For additional land resources, visit the International Land Coalition’s Database of Good Practices at: http://www.landcoalition.org/en/good-practices
Over 400,000 acres of land in Myanmar, that was taken by the military, government, and private companies between the 1980s and early 2000s, has reportedly been released since 2013. However, this does not mean that the land has been returned to the farmers whose livelihoods were displaced by these land acquisitions. Namati offers this brief to emphasize the need for the government to also put in place simple, transparent mechanisms to ensure that land and justice is restored to those farmers and communities who were dispossessed of their livelihoods without due process or compensation.
Note: this brief is in Burmese. An English language version is available here.
Over 400,000 acres of land taken by the military, government, and private companies between the 1980s and early 2000s has reportedly been released since 2013. However, this does not mean that the land has been returned to the farmers whose livelihoods were displaced by these land acquisitions. Namati offers this brief to emphasize the need for the government to also put in place simple, transparent mechanisms to ensure that land and justice is restored to those farmers and communities who were dispossessed of their livelihoods without due process.
Note: A Burmese version of the brief can be found here.
This document is the second in the series of community led groundtruthing exercises carried out by the Centre for Policy Research (CPR)-Namati Environmental Justice Program in partnership with Janabhivyakti and Hasdeo Arand Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (HABSS). It highlights the process and findings of an exercise where the representatives of a community affected by mining in central India tried to understand whether the impacts of dust pollution, water contamination and felling of trees faced by them were arising out of the non-compliance of law. They systematically collected evidence and filed well drafted complaints to the concerned institutions who could affect remedies. As the final report establishes, this process led to positive official remedies in some cases. In others, the follow up is ongoing.
Though governments in many countries have regulatory procedures for implementing environmental and social safeguards to minimize or mitigate such problems, compliance of these safeguards is often absent or low. Further, what is stated in law, regulatory approvals or license agreements often does not correlate with the actual adversities that affected people are forced to deal with.
Groundtruthing is a method of gathering information that can connect official regulatory requirements with the actual impacts development has on people in a particular location. The outputs from a groundtruthing exercise can be used as effective evidence to demonstrate levels of compliance by projects to the relevant authorities. In the long run, citizen’s engagement with compliance issues will help to make the overall regulatory system more proactive and responsive to their concerns about development.
This one-hour video is a recording of a webinar, facilitated by the CRP-Namati team in India, explaining how the groundtruthing method can be used by practitioners around the world.
Este manual é uma ferramenta prática para capacitar as comunidades sobre o significado do direito à saúde e como identificar e liderar em caso de violação destes direitos. O manual foi preparado para ser usado por membros das comunidades, organizações da sociedade civil (GAACs, OCBs, etc.), comités de saúde e de cogestão, trabalhadores de saúde, organizações não-governamentais, instituições educacionais, ou qualquer outra entidade interessada no direito à saúde. Pode ser igualmente usado como uma fonte de informação independente ou como uma ferramenta de formação em seminários sobre o direito à saúde.
Cada secção contém exemplos práticos para ilustrar as ideias principais e para sugerir vários exercícios e estudos de caso que poderiam ser usados em formações. Muitos destes exemplos são casos reais que constituem experiência da Namati Moçambique.
The Right to Health Training Manual for Mozambique
This manual is a practical tool to empower communities on the meaning of the right to health and how to identify and lead in case of violation of these rights. The manual was designed for use by community members, civil society (GAACs, CBOs, etc.), village health committees, health workers, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, and any other party interested in the right to health.
Each section contains practical examples to illustrate key ideas, as well as various exercises and case studies that can be used for training purposes. Many of these examples are drawn from Namati’s grassroots experience in Mozambique.
In recent years, governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America have been granting vast land concessions to foreign investors for agro-industrial enterprises and resource extraction. Often, governments make concessions with a view to furthering development and strengthening the national economy. Yet in many cases, these land concessions dispossess rural communities and deprive them of access to natural resources vital to their livelihoods and economic survival. Even when communities welcome private investment, projects are often undertaken in ways that lead to environmental degradation, human rights violations, loss of access to livelihoods, and inequity.
Liberia currently has one of the highest land concession rates in Africa. Between 2004 and 2009, the Liberian government either granted or re- negotiated land and forestry concessions totaling 1.6 million hectares – over 7% of the total national land area. Today, even with a moratorium on public land sale in place, private investors continue to seek and acquire land concessions throughout the country: in 2010 alone, more than 661,000 hectares were granted to two foreign corporations for palm oil production. A recent 2012 report finds that currently, “Land allocated to rubber, oil palm and forestry concessions covers approximately 2,546,406 hectares, or approximately 25% of the country.”
In the coming years, if concession grants are not carefully controlled, the amount of land still held and managed by rural Liberians will significantly decrease. This will have adverse impacts on already impoverished rural communities. In Liberia, strong legal protections for community lands and natural resources and a clear, simple, and easy-to-follow legal process for the documentation of customary community land rights are urgently necessary.
Community land titling processes, which document the perimeter of the community according to customary boundaries, are a low-cost, efficient, and equitable way of protecting communities’ customary land claims. Such efforts protect large numbers of families’ lands at once, as well as the common lands and forests that are often the first to be allocated to investors, claimed by elites, and appropriated for state development projects. Importantly, formal recognition of their customary land claims gives communities critical leverage in negotiations with potential investors.
To support the Liberian Land Commission’s efforts to strengthen the tenure security of customary land rights, the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) undertook a two- year study entitled the “Community Land Titling Initiative” in Rivercess County, Liberia.5 The first study of its kind worldwide, the intervention’s goal was to better understand both the type and level of support that communities require to successfully complete community land documentation processes, as well as how to best facilitate intra-community protections for the land rights of vulnerable groups.
The intervention’s primary objectives were to:
Due to the President’s moratorium on public land sale and the suspension of all public land sale processes (as set out in the Public Lands Act 1972-1973), the 20 study communities followed a skeletal documentation process set out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between IDLO, SDI and the Land Commission of Liberia. These steps included:
SDI’s field team observed and recorded the communities’ progress through the requisite steps, noting: all obstacles confronted and their resolutions; all intra- and inter-community land conflicts and their resolutions; and all internal community debates and discussions. A pre- and post-service survey of over 700 individuals and more than 100 structured focus group discussions supplemented the field team’s observations.
This report details the communities’ experiences undertaking the land documentation activities and summarizes the initial impacts of these efforts under the following subject headings: conflict resolution and prevention (encompassing boundary harmonization and demarcation); intra-community governance (encompassing by-laws/constitution drafting); and conservation and sustainable natural resource management (encompassing land and natural resource management plan drafting). It briefly reviews the obstacles and hurdles confronted during the community land documentation the process, and then describes conclusions relative to the optimal level of legal intervention necessary to support communities’ successful completion of community land documentation efforts. The report also details findings concerning how best to facilitate intra-community protections for the rights of women and other vulnerable groups during the land documentation process.
The report concludes by setting forth findings and recommendations intended to inform policy dialogue and to provide useful information for the Land Commission, the government of Liberia, and all interested stakeholders seeking to develop laws and policies for community land documentation.
An overview of Groundtruthing – a methodology for comparing facts stated in official documents and maps with the ground realities at a site or in a place. Groundtruthing can act as an effective tool to create evidence by collecting easily observable facts about operations that might be illegal, prohibited or causing harm. The evidence can be used in complaints directed to the relevant regulatory authority, appellate mechanism or judicial body. This method is useful for one-time investigations or the ongoing monitoring of impacts.
Background: What is a community paralegal?
Community paralegals are dedicated to legal empowerment: they help people to understand, use, and shape the law. These advocates are called different names in different places – including “grassroots legal advocate,” “barefoot lawyer,” “community legal worker,” or a host of other titles. They are trained in law and policy and in skills like mediation, organizing, and advocacy.
Although they often are called “community paralegals,” they are not the kind of paralegals who primarily serve as lawyers’ assistants. These paralegals work with clients to seek concrete solutions to instances of injustice, often at the community or administrative levels. They form a dynamic, creative frontline that can engage formal and traditional institutions alike. Moreover, Just as primary health workers are connected to doctors, community paralegals are often connected to lawyers who may help pursue litigation or high-level advocacy if frontline methods fail.
About this resource guide
The guide below is a collection of national paralegal research briefs that reviews the nature of the work undertaken by community paralegals in different countries, and how that work is recognized and funded by the government. The research briefs are accompanied by supporting national-level resources and laws related to community paralegals.
The briefs in this series focus on the types of community paralegals who have been formally recognized either in law or policy. We acknowledge that this is just a small part of a much larger picture: a broader, dynamic ecosystem of community paralegals operates effectively without state recognition in many countries. We aim to one day expand our research to offer a more comprehensive analysis of this larger universe. For now, however, our research briefs are limited to community paralegals who have been formally recognized by law or policy.
By better understanding national recognition and financing of paralegals across various contexts, practitioners can gain valuable insight to build and strengthen legal empowerment programs elsewhere. Legal empowerment expands meaningful, people-centered access to justice across the globe. This guide offers comparative analysis to support practitioners to strengthen and innovate on their existing efforts.
Contributions to the guide
Each of these briefs is a living document– if you have an update, addition or a correction, please contact us at community@namati.org. You can also submit national research on community paralegals by country or region to add to each section below. New briefs will be added on an on-going basis as they are researched, revised, and published.
The original desk research for each research brief was provided by the international law firm, White & Case LLP. Every brief has also been written with consultation and input from national experts who are directly involved with grassroots legal advocates in their country.
An interview from April 18, 2016 with Harvard University’s A Measure of Justice program on how Namati uses data to connect casework to policy change in Myanmar. The Measure of Justice Program is a group of leading practitioners, academics, and government officials working on legal empowerment.