Justice for the Poor

1. Justice for the Poor Land Administration Mini-Retreat November 19-20, 2007

2. What is Justice for the Poor? A program that focuses on the role of legal and regulatory frameworks and institutions in development processes- • Sees justice as a cross-sectoral concern. • Understands that legal institutions have the potential to both perpetuate and ‘break’ inequality traps • Recognizes that legal institutions are inherently contextual; is built on detailed understanding of social and cultural realities at the local level • Engages with legal pluralism • Focuses on the viewpoint of the user; particularly concerned about the rights of the poor and marginalized • Recognizes the importance of demand in the development of equitable justice systems and processes of institutional reform

3. Program Rationale & Motivation • Growing understanding that equitable justice systems are key to sustainable development • Recognition of the need for complementary demand side initiatives to more conventional approaches to justice reform • Increased focus on: - broader governance issues - decentralization and community driven development - participation, transparency and accountability - security and stability -human rights and development • At same time, ‘missing law’ in development more generally and limited engagement with issue of development causing conflict

4. Goals J4P’s aims are: • To address the immediate justice-related needs of the poor (recognising that the development of more equitable formal legal systems may be a multi-generational endeavour). • To enhance the effectiveness of other development efforts by supporting them to address the justice and conflict management related aspects of their work. • In the long-term, to bring about incremental systemic change to justice sector institutions and systems of governance by supporting demand side pressures for reform.

5. Objectives To fulfil the above aims, J4P has the following objectives: • Build a solid, empirically founded knowledge base of the dynamics of local level decision making and dispute resolution processes and inequality traps. • Enhance the capacity at the local level to conduct policy research and undertake evidence based policy reform. • Support existing locally driven initiatives, and help design, implement and evaluate new pro-poor justice initiatives (piloting), and including activities as part of broader programs (mainstreaming). • Enhance local ownership and citizen engagement in reform processes • Contribute to global dialogue on pro-poor justice issues.

6. Approach • Principles- • Programmatic • Not just sectoral/project specific work • Mainstreaming justice initiatives • Multi-country/comparative work • Empirical • Based on ongoing research and engagement with theories of social change • ‘Conflict’ model of development • Understanding development is inherently contested and often about redistribution of power/resources • Practice- • ‘facilitated’ or ‘funded mainstreaming, through use of trust funds etc

7. Program Trajectory

8. Focus on Land & Natural Resource Management: Rationale • Land reform and natural resource management are inherently political and conflict prone endeavours. (In all countries we currently work in biggest cause of conflict) • Lack of good theory on how to design land and natural resources management processes in situations of legal pluralism • Disconnect between socio-legal understandings of the context in which decisions about land and natural resources are made and the understanding and practice of policy makers • Single individuals or communities often simultaneously hold conflicting ideas about the role of land, ranging from a marker of identity to a tradable commodity • State regulation can be an important mechanism to improve security yet the state can also be a source of tenure insecurity.

9. Land & Natural Resource Management:Research Areas • Processes of Formalization • Dispute resolution • Public land management • Plural land orders

10. Example of Country Work: Cambodia Research Findings: • Collective action in response to land disputes is prevalent and can be effective – key factors: - villagers needed to be able to organize as a group - villagers needed to be able to attract the attention of higher-level decision makers - success hinged on villagers’ ability to persuade sufficiently influential administrative decision makers of the merit of their cases • The gap between law and practice in land management is a key trigger for disputes • Predominance of patrimonial over legal/bureaucratic forms of power • Impacts of the current system: uncertainty, frustration and political pressure

11. Example of Country Work: Cambodia Recommendations: • Development of grassroots leaders with high-level facilitation and coalition-building skills by supporting collective action around livelihoods, governance and common pool resource management. • Enhancement of access to information and advocacy resources from trusted sources. • Countering the fear of speaking out by supporting dialogue among citizens, government and political parties through, for example, more interactive media and local public forums. • More effort should be invested in prevention of collective land disputes. Support for consultative land use planning processes should be considered. • An integrated approach to state land mapping and possible regularization of current usage rights through social land concessions or other instruments may be a useful way to resolve and prevent disputes.