Membership Involvement
- 04 August 2014 -
- Written by Laspnet
- Hits: 8857
LASPNET offers opportunities for member involvement and participation in its programmes and activities. LASPNET also recognises other organisations that are not its Members and will create opportunities for open exchanges with them.
a)LASPNET programmes offer a wide range of activities in which all Members are encouraged to participate. The following are some examples of how you can participate:
- i. Capacity building and institutional development: This is a continuing process in which all stakeholders participate in creation of an enabling environment with appropriate policy and legal frameworks, human resources development and strengthening of managerial systems. LASPNET will develop such initiatives as those that improve governance, leadership, mission and strategy, administration (including human resources, financial management, and legal matters), programme development and implementation, fundraising and income generation, diversity, partnerships and collaboration, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy and policy change, marketing, positioning, strategic planning, as well as various skills in personal and professional development.
Members are invited to participate in the following ways:
- Share information about the current state of their organisations and highlight their contribution to the communities they serve.
- Participate in human and institutional capacity needs analyses to enable effective mapping of existing expertise
- Contribute ideas, data, information, analyses, and case studies to facilitate action learning processes.
For further information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- ii. Collective research and advocacy: This is a search for knowledge through a systematic investigation, with an open mind, to establish relevant novel facts and thereby support viewpoints that influence policy, regulations, and standards-setting. LASPNET will encourage collaborative legal research among its Members for heightening awareness of pertinent issues before key decision-makers. This will be strengthened by collective interventions in advocating for responsible policies and practices which improve access to justice for the poor. The research findings will also facilitate an action learning process for enabling a deeper understanding of the issues involved, a reflective reassessment of the identified problems, and an exploration of the ways forward.
Members are invited to participate in the following ways:
- Identify and suggest policies that may require collective engagement by legal aid service providers in Uganda;
- Contribute updates and analyses about existing legal concerns in the local communities so as to enable monitoring of occurrences at national level;
- Actively participate in policy engagement consultations organised by LASPNET at national, regional and sub-national level.
- Engage collectively in national, regional and global level advocacy on the issues that emerge from research and consultations.
- Participate in Working Groups and share ideas, experiences, lessons learnt; and to shape the policy engagement agenda of the Network.
For further information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- iii. Publicity and information management: This is a rigorous drive for sharing information and acquiring knowledge to promote the legal aid agenda. It will be achieved through online and traditional media such as news coverage, feature articles, talk show interviews, and blog postings. However, some form of public relations will also be initiated to protect and strengthen the credibility of the Network. LASPNET will employ a number of ways to enhance its image, develop goodwill and influence attitudes. This will be done in several ways that include special events, newsletters, annual reports and news releases. On the other hand, publicity will be complemented with the ability to capture, manage, preserve, store and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. It will involve the organisation of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information. LASPNET will ensure proper application of policies, processes, technologies and best practices through an elaborate process of information management.
Members are invited to participate in the following ways:
- Share information, research, experiences, best practices and opportunities of their organisations through web-based platforms, discussion groups, regularly produced information briefs/newsletters and the like.
- Mobilise other organisations to promote and defend the legal aid cause in the interest of indigent, marginalised and vulnerable persons.
- Participate in membership events organised to profile and promote the work of legal aid service providers
- Participate in client satisfaction surveys and propose value addition programmes for the benefit of Members
- Represent and advocate on behalf of other legal aid service providers at work-related meetings when called upon.
For contributions or further information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- iv. Sector-wide collaboration and dialogue: This will be promoted to enable participation of legal aid service providers in the existing cross-institutional development and sector-wide initiatives so as to encourage consistency and generate efficiencies. This is intended to nurture a practice for information sharing on internal policies and guidelines among the sector players as well as increase mutual cooperation and ensure effective communication. In this way, the large institutions and smaller institutions can work together to develop collaborative platforms that reduce costs, create efficiencies, increase discoverability, and share expertise. LASPNET will therefore develop a record of documents, case studies, and statistics (whether internally, cross institutionally or sector-wide) which demonstrate the benefits of such open access. The Secretariat will coordinate the membership to include measures of impact, shared reuse of and access to information in their key performance indicators. It will ensure that value is measured beyond client turnover to incorporate various outcomes of open access as a desirable requirement in strengthening legal aid service provision
Members are invited to participate in the following ways:
- Mobilise other stakeholders and participate in dialogue with government to ensure good governance models and effective service delivery
- Involve in the JLOS symposiums and other multi-sector events organised to profile and promote the work of Members
- Participate in programmes for other member organisations and make value addition proposals in their programme design
- Represent and advocate on behalf of LASPNET and its membership in local JLOS meetings and other relevant fora
- Propose and support various innovative ways of promoting sector-wide collaboration and dialogue with all other relevant sectors.
For contributions or further information, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .'; document.write(''); document.write(addy_text57634); document.write('<\/a>'); //-->\n This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
LASPNET is clustered into 7 thematic clusters which offer opportunities for periodic engagement of Members in programme activities. Each member organisation is attached to one thematic cluster but may also take part in the activities of other clusters. The Network utilises the thematic clusters to provide technical input into identified areas of contextual relevance and thematic interest. All the meetings of thematic clusters are financially resourced and supported by the LASPNET Secretariat. The following are the seven clusters in which a member should participate:
- The cluster on Pre-trial Justice: This focuses on promotion of appropriate alternatives to excessive and arbitrary incarceration of suspects, without their trial, by influencing relevant policies that can help in expanding access to legal aid services as well as determining practical actions in deploying paralegals and community volunteers to intervene earlier in the justice delivery process.
- The cluster on Traditional Justice: This focuses on the role of customary governance in enhancing access to justice among the grassroots by promoting innovative traditional justice mechanisms that complement conventional judicial systems but also capacitating them to observe human rights, avoid discrimination and apply principles of procedural fairness.
- The cluster on Children Justice: This focuses on policy, system, structure and legislation that relate to delinquency among young offenders to influence attitudes as well as promote options that enable necessary child protection, age-appropriate support, and responsive diversion of deserving cases from the custodial justice system while considering the general access-to-justice issues for children.
- The cluster on Gender Justice: The thematic cluster on gender justice focuses on providing input for changes to legislation, practice, and procedure which will improve the gender justice system as well as promoting programme actions such as mediation, awareness – raising, counselling and empowerment through linkages with actors in health, education, and law enforcement agencies.
- The cluster on Transitional Justice: This focuses on promoting judicial and other effective measures to constructively redress past atrocities by rebuilding coexistence as well as contributing to processes for reconciliation and reformation from a divided history to a shared future in communities affected by legacies of massive human rights abuse.
- The cluster on Social Justice: This focuses on strengthening the impact of interventions for promoting equal access to opportunities and rights, fair system of law and due process, recognition of human value and wellbeing, as well as legal support and protection of key targeted groups/persons who are underprivileged, marginalised or vulnerable.
- The cluster on Land Justice: This focuses on identifying, understanding, documenting and addressing obstacles especially faced by the poor people, including communities that practice customary ownership in securing land rights and tenure security as well as propose better policy alternatives as complemented by appropriate dispute resolution.
LASPNET is also composed of working groups which comprise of representatives from the thematic clusters who are selected depending on their expertise in relation to the matter under discussion. Every working group will have one representative from each thematic cluster. The working groups assess the recommendations of the thematic clusters to inform priority actions. The decisions taken at these meetings is approved by the Board of Directors. All the meetings of thematic clusters are financially resourced and supported by the LASPNET Secretariat. The following are three working groups in which a member can participate:
- The working group on Technical/Access to Justice Concerns: This focuses on priorities that involve experiential and specialised guidance to address the identified hitches in ensuring an effective and professional legal system that is accountable, affordable, sustainable and accessible for all.
- The working group on Institutional Development Matters: This focuses on priorities that enable the exploration of existing strategic approaches, internal policies and systems, as well as inter-organisational relationships to provide tools for promoting needed capacity and harmonised standards but relying on high-level political support and the participation of all key stakeholders on a sustainable basis.
- The working group on crosscutting issues: This focuses on priorities that will advance provision of legal aid services to traditionally excluded groups through thematic analysis of issues for integration into programmes and activities.
