Legal empowerment of the poor
Making the law work to promote inclusion and development is the cornerstone of a better, more human-based approach to development.
This round table will bring together policy-makers, academics, law professionals, development practitioners and partners, from both the North and the South, to an informed discussion on the imperatives of empowerment to promote inclusion and development. The meeting will attempt to identify the key challenges to put the ‘legal empowerment agenda’ into practice.
Taking into account the seminal work and recommendations of the Commission on legal empowerment of the poor, the round table will also seek to generate political commitment and mobilise resources to implement the legal empowerment agenda as a means for promoting social inclusion, access to justice and human development. It will also help development partners chart a multi-stakeholder and multi-dimensional operational strategy for the legal empowerment of the poor.
What is a stake? The poor often lack access to services, face insecurity and struggle to have even basic human rights met. They are often unable to voice their needs, seek redress against injustice, participate in public life, and influence policies that shape their lives. These hurdles, in turn, reinforce poverty and exclusion.
By legally empowering the poor, it gives a voice and identity to individuals and groups and a means of countering the actions and practices that perpetuate poverty.
For development partners, the legal empowerment agenda presents a unique, holistic, alternative strategy that addresses the core issues of identity, voice and accountability, which are essential for a human rights-based approach to development.
While legal empowerment of the poor is not a substitute for other important development interventions, it can be a necessary condition for creating an enabling environment for providing sustainable livelihoods and eradicating poverty. It can be a key for reaching the Millennium Development Goals and making and sustaining gains in human development.
More importantly, legal empowerment can protect the poor against shocks induced, for example, by food or economic crises or climate change. It is a bottom-up agenda which aims at making institutions more responsive to the needs of individuals who are poor and at fostering social inclusion.