Legal empowerment for secure resource access

About this project

Background 

Appropriate legal arrangements and adequate capacity to use them can help local groups in Africa have greater control over the natural resources on which they depend. This is the essence of the concept of legal empowerment – using the law to help disadvantaged groups have greater control over decisions and processes affecting their lives.

Yet, in much of rural Africa, the effectiveness of law as a tool for empowerment is constrained by inappropriate legislation that does not respond to local needs, or that fails to protect the interests of weaker groups; by lack of resources to implement and enforce legislation; by lack of legal awareness; by constraints on access to legal institutions such as courts; and by power asymmetries between actors standing to gain or to lose from law implementation.

Legal empowerment requires addressing these constraints through action at different levels, including for instance:

  • law reform to establish or improve legal arrangements that strengthen the protection of local resource rights, or that provide greater say in decision-making processes affecting these rights
  • strategies, approaches and support materials to help local groups make the most of the opportunities offered by the law, including legal literacy training, legal assistance, individual and public interest litigation, and representation and advocacy.

 

Aims 

Together with partners, we aim to promote legal empowerment through:

  • identifying innovative legal arrangements to secure local resource rights, developing ways to improve these arrangements, and supporting informed and participatory policy processes to change legal frameworks where needed
  • developing, testing and implementing approaches to build local capacity to make use of the law (e.g. legal literacy training), targeting selected sites while developing innovative approaches that can be replicated elsewhere
  • facilitating cross-country exchange of experience and wider dissemination to enable mutual learning and wider lesson sharing on innovative ways to use the law as a tool for empowerment.

 

Partners 

Ghana Centre for Public Interest Law and Faculty of Law of the University of Ghana

Mali Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche en Sociologie et Droit Appliqué

Mozambique Centro Terra Viva

Senegal Innovations Environnement et Développement en Afrique

UK Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development

 

Contact 

Lorenzo Cotula lorenzo.cotula@iied.org