The government of Myanmar, under two separate administrations, has been working to resolve land grabs since 2012. Namati, partners, and community paralegals they deploy have been working on land grab cases since 2013. Paralegals collect granular data on every case they support and Namati collects, stores, and analyses this data. This data shows that the rate at which land grab cases are being resolved has been slowing since a high-point in the third quarter of 2015. This slowdown is widely acknowledged by senior officials and officials working in the system.
This policy brief addresses three questions:
1. At what rate have land grab cases been resolved over the last six years?
2. Why is the resolution rate of land grab cases slowing down?
3. What can the government and civil society do to reverse these troubling trends?
This policy brief will explore these questions using case data, the caseworks experience of community paralegals, official information released by the governments, and the experience of CSO representatives involved in the mechanism.
This resource is also available in Burmese.
ProBono.Org seeks to break down the multilayered set of barriers to accessing justice, recognizing that social justice outcomes cannot be achieved if people do not have equal opportunity for high quality and affordable legal services, support and representation. To this end, we will continue to positively impact the private legal profession to fulfil their professional and social responsibility in delivering much needed legal services and support, provide an innovative learning and development platform for young lawyers and nudge the legal sector to implement key transformation actions towards greater gender and race equality.
Our Vision
ProBono.Org’s vision for South Africa is to see improved legal, social and economic justice for poor and vulnerable people.
Our Mission
ProBono.Org supports the private legal profession and public interest organisations to effectively render access to justice and legal services through :
Our mission to help eradicate poverty is met by erasing rule of law deficit in developing countries through the use of technology to create access to justice and peaceful economic development. We assist in creating tech platforms accessible both to those within developing countries where we work and to global markets. This process nurtures an interconnected global network where the developing country participants play the leading role in establishing norms.
By nurturing the creation of global markets which are driven by developing world participants, our projects foster respect for the rule of law in places where markets and rule of law institutions are lacking. We use online music competitions to provide the incentives to use digital tools and to attend workshops on laws to protect property rights and create enforceable contracts and use online dispute resolution. By linking the governed to a private system where all can make and enforce laws, we are teaching developing world participants to become stakeholders in a system of enforceable rights and predictable and equally applicable rules based on norms.These norms spawn the creation of a private justice system as they are first used on mobile devices to engage in global commerce.
Our music project, PeaceTones, was started in 2008 (www.peacetones.org); our legal aid access to justice project was started in 2011 (www.techforjustice.org).
As Mozambique’s economy grows, it is more important than ever to support communities to delimit their lands and take empowered action to enter into negotiations with potential investors. Yet since the passage of the Lei de Terra in 1997, only a few hundred communities across Mozambique have been delimited. Starting in 2009, Namati and CTV investigated how to facilitate community land delimitation processes more efficiently. Our findings identified a potentially high-impact solution: by teaching communities to undertake the delimitation process on their own – led by trained local paralegals and supervised by a legal and technical field team – government actors and land rights advocates can support the delimitation efforts of many more communities. This low-cost and community-driven approach allows one regional technical team to support and supervise multiple communities’ efforts simultaneously, opening the door for community land delimitation at scale.
Based on this finding, CTV and Namati now employ dozens of locally-based paralegals to lead communities through the delimitation process. These trained and supervised paralegals, or ‘Community Mobilizers,’ convene and facilitate community meetings, answer questions about land tenure rights in Mozambique, and support their communities to complete each aspect of the delimitation process.
The study described in this report provides crucial insight into how to improve NGO and government facilitation of community land delimitation processes. The data clearly indicate that delimitation efforts that end merely with a certificate and a map may do an injustice to communities; it is necessary to go beyond technical delimitation to ensure that communities have the tools to create, plan for and actualize their own vision of a prosperous future. It is critical to frame community land delimitation efforts as a comprehensive package of work that combines mapping and delimitation with improving governance and safeguarding the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups. To ensure that community members are equipped to enter into authentic consultations and fair negotiations with investors, the delimitation process must also promote legal literacy and empowerment, and include steps designed to ensure good governance of community lands and natural resources.
To this end, CTV and Namati now pair on-going legal education with a multi-step community rule-drafting process, in which communities list their customary rules, amend them as necessary to ensure that they do not contravene the Mozambican Constitution, and then formally adopt them as local ‘by-laws’ for the management of land and natural resources. Drafted by communities, these by-laws help to hold community leaders downwardly accountable, ensure that women’s land rights are protected, and support local sustainable management of natural resources.
As part of this same study, data from Uganda and Liberia illustrate how integrated, comprehensive community land delimitation efforts have the potential to foster profound changes that go far beyond documentation. Since adding a governance component to our work in Mozambique, we have observed the same remarkable changes: communities are debating local rules for the first time in living memory, then revising them to align their community norms and practices with national and human rights law.
In the long run, however, community-driven land delimitation processes cannot succeed without the commitment and support of the Government of Mozambique. To this end, CTV and Namati work closely with district and provincial governments throughout the delimitation process and at specific points in the by-laws drafting process. We ask that governments not only recognize communities’ by-laws, but also assist with their implementation and enforcement. Government officials could also: help to defend communities against elite encroachment or bad faith appropriation of customary lands; act as a check against abuses of power by corrupt community leaders; enforce investor fulfillment of benefits promised in return for the use of community lands; and enforce the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups.
The findings described in this publication provide an excellent foundation for stronger, smarter efforts to protect community land rights and improve local land governance. We now understand the risks of delimitation in isolation, and have broadened our intervention to ensure a comprehensive strategy that has the potential to support rural communities throughout Mozambique to claim their land rights, establish accountable governance, and shape their own future development and prosperity.
As Mozambique’s economy grows, it is more important than ever to support communities to delimit their lands and take empowered action to enter into negotiations with potential investors. Yet since the passage of the Lei de Terra in 1997, only a few hundred communities across Mozambique have been delimited. Starting in 2009, Namati and CTV investigated how to facilitate community land delimitation processes more efficiently. Our findings identified a potentially high-impact solution: by teaching communities to undertake the delimitation process on their own – led by trained local paralegals and supervised by a legal and technical field team – government actors and land rights advocates can support the delimitation efforts of many more communities. This low-cost and community-driven approach allows one regional technical team to support and supervise multiple communities’ efforts simultaneously, opening the door for community land delimitation at scale.
Based on this finding, CTV and Namati now employ dozens of locally-based paralegals to lead communities through the delimitation process. These trained and supervised paralegals, or ‘Community Mobilizers,’ convene and facilitate community meetings, answer questions about land tenure rights in Mozambique, and support their communities to complete each aspect of the delimitation process.
The study described in this report provides crucial insight into how to improve NGO and government facilitation of community land delimitation processes. The data clearly indicate that delimitation efforts that end merely with a certificate and a map may do an injustice to communities; it is necessary to go beyond technical delimitation to ensure that communities have the tools to create, plan for and actualize their own vision of a prosperous future. It is critical to frame community land delimitation efforts as a comprehensive package of work that combines mapping and delimitation with improving governance and safeguarding the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups. To ensure that community members are equipped to enter into authentic consultations and fair negotiations with investors, the delimitation process must also promote legal literacy and empowerment, and include steps designed to ensure good governance of community lands and natural resources.
To this end, CTV and Namati now pair on-going legal education with a multi-step community rule-drafting process, in which communities list their customary rules, amend them as necessary to ensure that they do not contravene the Mozambican Constitution, and then formally adopt them as local ‘by-laws’ for the management of land and natural resources. Drafted by communities, these by-laws help to hold community leaders downwardly accountable, ensure that women’s land rights are protected, and support local sustainable management of natural resources.
As part of this same study, data from Uganda and Liberia illustrate how integrated, comprehensive community land delimitation efforts have the potential to foster profound changes that go far beyond documentation. Since adding a governance component to our work in Mozambique, we have observed the same remarkable changes: communities are debating local rules for the first time in living memory, then revising them to align their community norms and practices with national and human rights law.
In the long run, however, community-driven land delimitation processes cannot succeed without the commitment and support of the Government of Mozambique. To this end, CTV and Namati work closely with district and provincial governments throughout the delimitation process and at specific points in the by-laws drafting process. We ask that governments not only recognize communities’ by-laws, but also assist with their implementation and enforcement. Government officials could also: help to defend communities against elite encroachment or bad faith appropriation of customary lands; act as a check against abuses of power by corrupt community leaders; enforce investor fulfillment of benefits promised in return for the use of community lands; and enforce the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups.
The findings described in this publication provide an excellent foundation for stronger, smarter efforts to protect community land rights and improve local land governance. We now understand the risks of delimitation in isolation, and have broadened our intervention to ensure a comprehensive strategy that has the potential to support rural communities throughout Mozambique to claim their land rights, establish accountable governance, and shape their own future development and prosperity.
Kituo cha Sera na Utafiti- Mpango wa Haki za Mazingira wa Namati
Utangulizi na Maelezo ya Jumla ya Mwongozo wa Utendaji
Maeneo mengi ya dunia, bila kujali viwango vyao vya maendeleo ya kiuchumi,
yapo katika ukingo wa mgogoro mkali wa kimazingira.
Katika maeneo haya, shughuli za miradi ya uzalishaji kama vile mashamba
makubwa, uchimbaji madini na maendeleo ya viwanda zimezorotesha hali za
kiuchumi, kijamii na afya za jamii jirani na zile za mbali pia. Sheria na tasisi zao
imara za kitaifa na kimajimbo zilizopo kwa ajili ya ulinzi na usimamizi wa malighafi
zimebakia kwenye karatasi na ukiukwaji wa sheria umekuwa na athari kubwa
kwenye maisha ya ya jamii, afya, upatikanaji wa ardhi na maisha bora.
Mwongozo wa utendaji wa Namati na CPRS wa wasaidizi wa kisheria wa Haki za
Mazingira ni hatua moja iliyolenga kuziba mwanya huu wa utekelezaji wa
kimazingira.
Mwongozo huu unatoa mbinu kwa wahamasishaji wa jamii, wanaharakati na
makundi ya wananchi waache kutaja tu matatizo na waanze kuchukua
malalamishi yanayoshughulikiwa na taasisi za kimazingira. Mwongozo huu ni
matokeo ya miaka minne ya kazi iliyofanywa na wasaidizi wa kisheria wa Mpango
wa Haki za Mazingira wa CPRS- Namati ili kusaidia jamii athirika kuandikisha
malalamishi na kutafuta suluhu katika kesi zaidi ya 150 za ukiukwaji huko India.
Tunatarajia kwamba mwongozo huu utayasaidia mashirika ya mitaa na makundi
ya kijamii kuishughulikia migogoro ya kimazingira na kuwatafutia utatuzi wale
walioathirika.
This resource is also available in French, Oriya, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, and Bahasa Indonesian.
Recording information about individual cases is extremely important for an effective, organized paralegal program. This exercise provides a sample client story based on a real case in addition to a blank case intake form and action log for paralegal training purposes.
This exercise and form are used by Namati and Timap for Justice paralegals in Sierra Leone to document cases. They may be used and adapted to other contexts for the purposes of training and documenting paralegal casework.
Recording information about individual cases is extremely important for an effective, organized paralegal program. This exercise provides a sample client story based on a real case and a blank case intake form for paralegals in training to practice documentation. This form is focused on issues of citizenship and identity documentation.
This exercise and form are used by Namati and the Nubian Rights Forum in Kenya to train paralegals and document cases. It may be used and adapted to other contexts for the purpose of documenting paralegal casework.
The Review is basically a look at selected written and mostly published materials related to women, women’s rights, gender, and justice. It hopes to get a general glimpse of what has been said publicly about issues and concerns of justice and women’s perspectives, experiences, assessments, and recommendations in relation to the Philippine justice system (though largely pertaining to court processes and systems).
The type of materials for this Review includes books (materials with 50 pages or more), journals, and academic papers such as theses and dissertation papers (the only ones not published in the collection reviewed in this study), and pamphlets published by NGOs and government agencies. Most of the NGOs and alternative law groups’ publications on the subject matter were published from the 1990’s to the present, and the few years preceding that may already cover what one may loosely identify as relevant to the current concept of and engagement with the justice system.
The following are the special areas of interest in the document
review:
GENDER JUSTICE: construction of gender justice
WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES: experiences of Filipino women in
their contact and engagement with the justice system
FEMINIST CRITIQUE: criticisms and counter-proposals by
feminists and women’s advocacy groups on the Philippine
justice system
COOPERATION for GENDER JUSTICE: dialogues and
breakthroughs for gender justice
ASSESSMENT/DEVELOPMENTS and RECOMMENDATIONS:
by feminists and women’s groups on the justice system in the
Philippines
This blog post explains how Namati and the Kenya Land Alliance piloted a participatory community mapping process with two communities in Tana River, Kenya. Namati and KLA used handheld GPS devices to record boundary and feature locations and then used that data in QGIS software to create maps that were validated by the communities.