Access to Justice Practitioners Guide Launch

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Access to Justice Practitioners Guide Launch

• Phnom Penh 22-24 September 2005

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Objectives of the workshop

• To launch and familiarise participants with the
  Access to Justice Practitioners Guide its key
  issues and methodology and to share knowledge and
  experience among practitioners in the
  Asia-Pacific region
• To test the relevance of the practitioners guide
  and its suggested methodology, suggest additional
  areas of study, identify gaps and examples
• To develop a strategy for next steps for the
  rights and justice network at a regional and
  global level. Strengthen and expand the community
  of practice through partnerships with key
  stakeholders and identify issues for future
  programming

3
Participants

• Country offices (18 COs represented)
• Government or non-government partners selected by
  the Country Offices
• Practitioners from the region (activists, NGOs,
  academic)
• Other resource persons who contributed to the
  practitioner's guide

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Agenda Structure-Day 1

• In conjunction with Country Office launch of
  National Report
• Half day of official launch of Cambodia report
  and (wider audience)- introduction to access to
  justice issues (links with poverty reduction,
  human rights and access to justice) and
  presentation of products
• 2 days of training/substantial discussions in
  plenary and working groups reflecting the
  structure of the guide

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Agenda Structure- Day 2 and 3

• Introduction to the programming methodology (10
  Steps)
• Three main sessions covering the substantial
  areas of the guide (Normative Protection,
  Capacity to Demand, Capacity to Provide)
• Presentation of Country Office Studies, as an
  application of the 10 Steps methodology
• One session on the way forward

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Substantial Areas Covered

• Interface between different normative frameworks
  (international legal framework, indigenous legal
  frameworks, secular and religious frameworks)
• Capacity to Demand Legal aid, Legal Awareness,
  Public interest Litigation, legal empowerment
  through NGOs
• Capacity to Provide Judiciary (independence,
  integrity, accountability and operational
  efficiency, enforcement-police, Oversight-
  national human rights institutions, mediation and
  ADR)

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Working Groups Structure

• Lead discussant to introduce a specific a2j topic
  (10 minutes) and help group focus on a case
• HRBA exercise facilitated mainly by UNDP Country
  Office representative
• Exercise guidelines been circulated in advance
• Facilitator and lead discussant meeting held one
  day in advance

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Selected Suggestions for the Way Forward from
Session 3

• Document the country offices experience and
  lesson learned
• Apply the Guide in practice by field testing the
  guide on ground in COs with the involvement of
  counterparts and support from RCB
• Refine the Guide as needed.
• Enlarge and strengthen the community of practice
  the Guide users, practitioners, HRBA
  practitioners, HURIST network, other UN agencies,
  other donors
• Knowledge and experience sharing with other
  like-minded regional networks
• Promote HRBA focal points in COs and work with
  them to provide training and facilitate awareness
  for HRBA at country level

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Key outputs of the workshop

• Awareness and visibility of the initiative and of
  the tools (guide, website etc.)
• Exposure of Country Offices Ongoing Pilot
  Programmes
• Knowledge sharing among practioners in the region
  on specific areas of interest
• Partnerships at regional and country level and
  expansion of community of practice and
  potentially of pool of human resources for access
  to justice projects
• Suggestions of further refinement of the
  methodology and issues to be covered when
  programming for access to justice (including
  practical examples)

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Usefulness and Relevance of Workshop Overall
Percentage Rating (Shows percentage breakdown of
259 individual rankings by participants of
Presentations, Working Groups, Practical Case
Studies)
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Usefulness Relevance Ranked for Session
(Shows the percentage breakdown from
evaluation forms for each Agenda
session/presentation, and overall for Working
Groups Practical Case Studies)
12
Will the Workshop Help you Make a Difference to
Communities Disadvantaged Peoples with whom you
work?

• Yes Programming can now be focused with the
  help of the Guide
• Yes We can draw from the 10-step model when
  designing our projects in the NGO sector use the
  manual to build capacity of local organizations
  Thank you for providing this valuable tool to us
• Good, informative, and well done.

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Did the Workshop Meet your Expectation?

• To a great extent. It gave me a detailed insight
  into the programme
• Yes useful to meet exchange views with
  others
• Strengthening of my substantive knowledge on
  A2J. Networking with UNDP/non_UNDP colleagues
• To some extent yes, but too ambitious
• Too little focus on Guides content. Poor time
  management

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What more could be done differently next time?

• More emphasis on the Guide itself
• Schedule too tight. More sightseeing
• Chair to intervene when conflicts between
  participants and presenters
• Shorten agenda or add a day

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Some Lessons Learned

• Ensure support in place in advance from RCB and
  CO (practice team assistant, RCB colleagues and
  RCB management, CO Management)
• Ensure Strong Chairs for plenaries- given widely
  varying perspectives of participants to avoid
  off-point and over time discussions
• Manage expectations of participants coming form
  different backgrounds and with different
  knowledge of the initiative by reminding and
  adjusting workshop objectives
• Anticipate that working groups would have
  different outcomes and reactions depending on the
  strength of the facilitator. In this case we had
  CO officers who benefited from this exercise, but
  were not all at the same level