To ensure that the revised standard is grounded in the needs of impacted communities, Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network have mobilized input from 150 frontline justice actors from 30 countries. 

“Indigenous and local communities are not observers in carbon narratives; we are the guardians of land and culture. We may not all have media platforms, but we hold lived truths.” Frank Setek, founder and executive director of Nkishon CBO.

What is Verra seeking to update:

As part of a public consultation process, Verra has introduced three key reforms to improve how the standards respond to community impacts as part of its Version 5: 

1. Strengthened requirements to clearly demonstrate project ownership and carbon rights
2. Enhanced safeguards and stakeholder engagement processes to ensure more inclusive participation
3. Increased financial transparency standards to improve accountability in benefit sharing. 

Recommendations from Frontline Communities: 

Overall, frontline justice actors welcome the changes from Verra that recognize the complexity of land tenure rights, improve access to information for communities, and require companies to understand and respond to social, environmental, and economic risks. 

“The direction of travel of Verra’s proposals is hopeful in that the carbon market industry is taking community needs seriously. However, to fully protect community rights, the standard must be clearer in addressing communal tenure, protecting defenders, and ensuring full transparency,” said Sonkita Conteh, Managing Director, Namati Sierra Leone.

Frontline communities have put forward clear, actionable recommendations, below, to ensure Verra’s proposed changes are not just adopted on paper, but meaningfully implemented on the ground.

• Land and Carbon Rights: Projects must follow the strongest legal protections—national or international—and recognize customary land rights, not just formal titles. FPIC processes must be supported to be genuine, and in places where that is not likely, including conflict zones, projects should be stopped or discouraged.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Safeguards: New risk assessment must have detailed provisions on protection of environmental rights defenders and the gendered impacts of projects. Those who want to create carbon projects should have to proactively explain how they will reduce these risks.
• Financial Transparency & Benefit Sharing: Projects must publicly disclose revenues, credit pricing, and benefit-sharing plans in accessible formats and local languages. It is not enough just to disclose this to direct project beneficiaries. Fair compensation standards must apply to all projects.

What’s Happening Now?

On August 11, 2025, Namati, the Grassroots Justice Network, and partners submitted final recommendations to Verra’s public consultation. As Verra reviews this crucial feedback and prepares to release updated standards by year’s end, we will continue advancing the Carbon Justice Campaign — a global movement anchored in six core principles essential to ensuring carbon projects are fair, just, and equitable.

The post Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network Call for Fair Carbon Standards appeared first on Namati.

On March 22, 2023, community-based paralegals and representatives from civil society and development organizations gathered at the University of Nairobi Faculty of Law to hear directly from community paralegals, His Excellency the Canadian High Commissioner Mr. Christopher Thornley, the Honorable Chief Justice of Kenya Martha Koome (through a representative), the UN Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers Prof. Margaret Sattherthwaite, Namati, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre about the importance of strengthening grassroots justice in Kenya and abroad.

Kituo cha Sheria and the Paralegal Society of Kenya (PSK) played a key role in putting on the event. PSK National Coordinator Mary Airo opened by urging development partners to continue funding paralegals, emphasizing the transformative impact of their work on society: “It is when paralegals engage local state institutions in concrete ways that justice is made accessible.” Elssy Saina, Chairperson of PSK and Executive Director of the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya then shared research showing that there are social, political, and economic benefits for Kenya of implementing and financing a robust legal aid regime that centers community-based approaches.

The Honorable Chief Justice of Kenya, Martha Koome, in remarks delivered by Principal Magistrate Moses Wanjala, emphasized the Court’s commitment to people-centered justice, noting that “Paralegals can help ensure that the justice system is not only accessible, but also responsive to the needs and realities of the people it is intended to serve.” The Chief Justice announced two exciting initiatives to support collaboration between the Kenyan Judiciary and community paralegals. First, the Judiciary plans to provide training and capacity building through the National Steering Committee on Alternative Justice Systems to ensure community paralegals are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills to provide effective legal services. And second, the Judiciary will help facilitate the involvement of community paralegals in the Small Claims Court to represent litigants.

The Canadian government is similarly prioritizing grassroots justice as a way to close the access to justice gap, by providing funding and programmatic support to community-level justice efforts around the world. In the words of Christopher Thornley, the High Commissioner of Canada to Kenya: “Prioritizing support for justice at the community level has been shown to be more effective in empowering women and marginalized groups of persons to know and claim their rights – which in turns offers potential for activating fundamental rights in our societies and building a deeper and richer conception of citizenship and democracy.”

Professor Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, pledged to use her UN mandate to shine a light on the essential work of grassroots advocates. She shared poignant reflections from her work with survivors of military abuses in Haiti, emphasizing that it is community justice advocates who have taught her the most about discrimination and injustice. She urged the audience to listen to and learn from communities, who best understand the problems they are facing and the solutions they need. Professor Satterthwaite put forth her vision for an expanded legal ecosystem in which paralegals and lawyers work together as allies and partners to dismantle systems of exclusion and close the global access to justice gap.

Two powerful panels gave life to the importance of this vision and to the crucial work being done by grassroots advocates in Kenya and around the world. In the first, Kenyan community paralegals Anthony Njenga (Kibera Community Justice Centre), Juliet Kisilu (Eastleigh Community Justice Centre), and community organizer David Mwangi (Akiba Mashinani Trust) shared their success stories and challenges from supporting single mothers to formalize their shops and earn a living, providing legal aid to individuals at Nairobi City Court, and organizing the Mukuru community to advocate for access to basic services. The three were in agreement that community justice workers must be formally recognized, resourced, and included in decision-making!

A second panel showcased the learning agenda for legal empowerment, a collective learning effort in which 11 projects across 16 countries are using participatory action research to identify what works to uphold human rights in the face of structural inequality and exclusion and rapidly eroding public accountability. Representatives from three of the projects were highlighted in the conversation: Sheila Formento from Alternative Law Groups in the Philippines, Jane Weru from Kenya’s Akiba Mashinani Trust, and Antonia Berríos & Macarena Martinic from Chile’s Fiscalía del Medio Ambiente. They shared how they are using systematic research and learning to build community power, increase the participation of women and marginalized groups in decision-making, and advance changes to laws and institutions.

In Kenya and around the globe, the transformative potential of community-level justice work is clear. Recognizing and funding the work of grassroots justice defenders is crucial to ensure that marginalized communities know their rights and can navigate the path to justice.

Watch the event here:

SPEAKERS

Presented in partnership with:

The post Strengthening the Global Movement for Grassroots Justice: A Public Event appeared first on Namati.

On March 22, community-based paralegals and representatives from civil society and development organizations are gathering at the University of Nairobi School of Law to hear directly from community paralegals, His Excellency the Canadian High Commissioner, the UN Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Namati, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre about the importance of strengthening grassroots justice in Kenya and abroad.

The event covers:

• The role of community paralegals in closing the global access to justice gap and meeting the targets for peaceful, just, and inclusive societies under the Sustainable Development Goals.
• An engaged conversation with community paralegals about the frontiers and challenges for legal empowerment.
• An evidence-based case for greater financial investments in legal empowerment approaches.
• The learning agenda for legal empowerment, convened by Namati and the Legal Empowerment Network, is a collective effort to identify what works to uphold human rights in the face of structural inequality and exclusion and rapidly eroding public accountability. Participants from the learning agenda will show how they are using systematic research and learning to build community power, increase the participation of women and marginalized groups in decision-making, and advance changes to laws and institutions. The evidence and learning they are generating is helping to deepen democratic and inclusive governance across a range of political contexts, addressing root causes of inequality and exclusion, and promoting vibrant civic spaces.

Watch the event Live on March 22 at 4 – 6:30pm EAT at www.facebook.com/KituoSheria/live_videos

The post Event: Strengthening the Global Movement for Grassroots Justice appeared first on Namati.

Across the world, justice defenders are facing common challenges such as structural inequality and exclusion, shrinking civic spaces, and rapidly eroding public accountability. The learning agenda for legal empowerment, convened by Namati and the Legal Empowerment Network, and supported by Canada’s International Development Research Centre, is a collective effort to identify what approaches work to uphold human rights in the face of these challenges, and to grow the global movement for justice. Eleven action research projects across 16 countries are undertaking projects on a variety of issue areas, from refugee rights to police abuse, urban poverty, land rights, and more. These projects will test new approaches and generate powerful insights on how legal empowerment strategies can build community power, increase participation of marginalized groups in decision-making, and generate systemic change.

From March 20 to 24, 2023 learning agenda participants from across the world will be gathering in Nairobi. Over five days, the group will share insights about the different strategies that they are using to build community power and drive systems change. They will share the practical strategies that they are using, workshop live challenges and identify common themes for collective reflection and exchange. They will explore various themes that cut across the different issue areas and contexts they work in. For example, the ways in which they engage the State, the strategies they use to increase participation of marginalized groups in decision-making, and how they combine law and organizing to build community power. To ground these discussions in a practical way, participants will visit the work of local legal empowerment organizations in Kenya. Most importantly, this in-person time will help create closer relationships among participants and will generate solidarity and excitement to power their ongoing work together!

The shared foundations we lay at the global convening will guide deeper reflection and exchange on common themes for the rest of the year and beyond. We look forward to sharing the emerging insights that emerge from this collective learning effort.

Stay tuned for reflections and photos from the global convening!

The post The First In-Person Convening of the Learning Agenda for Legal Empowerment appeared first on Namati.

Namati is a Sanskrit word that means “to shape something into a curve.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We call ourselves Namati because we’re dedicated to bending that curve.

This video was generously produced by Skoll.org, a long-time partner of ours.

The post Bending the Arc Toward Social & Environmental Justice appeared first on Namati.

The Network is growing!

We grew to over 10,000 individual members and more than 2,500 organizations in 2021! We already grew to more than 11,000 individuals recently, and are set to surpass 3,000 organizations later this year. As individuals, we are now spread across 177 countries globally and continue to be a force to be reckoned with.

Despite some success, financing and protection issues continue

For many years now, financing has been the top concern for most legal empowerment organizations. The number of members who either have to make cuts to operate or may not be able to operate due to lack of funds has kept rising with 2021 affecting nearly 80% of the respondents.

Financing has been consistently reported as a concern by majority of the respondents.

In 2020, we launched the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund and achieved its goal of fundraising US $1 million for rapid-response, flexible grants that were provided to 60 member organizations in 38 countries. This year, we have also co-launched the Legal Empowerment Fund, which will distribute millions in long-term core funding to grassroots justice groups across the globe over many years to come. While our efforts to address these concerns have been successful, there is still a long way to go, and we will continue to focus on financing into the future.

74% of the respondents said it is difficult or very difficult to do legal empowerment work in their country.

Besides funding, members felt the impact of receding democratic spaces. 74% of members struggled to do legal empowerment work in their political and social contexts, and 50% said they or someone they know have been threatened, arrested or harassed pursuing justice in the last year. This marks yet another increase compared to the 2019 record.

In addition, members also mentioned the lack of access to technology and limited digital capacity making it harder for them to engage online. Vaccine equity is also another major concern especially for marginalized populations who are increasingly excluded due to discrimination and socio-economic status. Due to the existing digital divide and discrimination in our society, the impact of pandemic has been felt more deeply in many communities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped civic space and heavily impacted issues of security and protection. We are planning a course on protection of grassroots justice defenders within the next year. As we follow the journey of empowerment with our members, solidarity with others in the network helps to keep us united and strong in advancing our common values and sustaining results.

This word cloud represents the biggest concerns of network members and the key issues they want to focus on.

As we continue to grow and face new challenges, we learn what works along the way

On a positive note, Network activities and efforts are having an impact! Members shared incredible stories with us on how they gain new knowledge and skills, as well as how the network has helped improve their organization’s work and deepened their impact on the community. Our survey shows that we feel like a part of a community within the network and the network is becoming a relevant part to our collective journey towards legal empowerment.

For the second consecutive year, members wanted us to prioritize community organizing & empowerment and training and support to community paralegals. We also continue to see interest in the areas of women’s rights and land and environmental justice for learning opportunities.

And we’re listening – after holding the first Legal Empowerment Leadership Course virtually, we are in the process of building virtual courses on the topics that matter most to members to complement in-person learning opportunities. We are excited to launch virtual courses on a number of topics by the end of this year to expand learning opportunities across the network.

Read more about the results of our annual member survey HERE, and stay tuned for more information about upcoming courses, our 10th anniversary, and more soon.

The post Members tell us their challenges and priorities in the Legal Empowerment Network’s 2021 survey appeared first on Namati.

From January to December, Namati and our partners supported 25,000+ people in 6 countries to address injustices involving land, environment, healthcare, and citizenship. Together, we achieved remedies that directly improved the lives of 300,000+ people, and systemic changes that affected millions more.

We invite you to explore the stories behind these facts and figures in our annual impact report. 

In these pages, you’ll also discover how the Legal Empowerment Network drove our movement for justice forward by fostering deep learning among members across borders and by co-launching a global fund with the goal of investing $100 million in grassroots justice efforts worldwide.

The post 2021 Impact Report – Now Available appeared first on Namati.

My name is Yevgen Poltenko. I write to you today from Ukraine, as a member of the Legal Empowerment Network and a representative of grassroots justice organizations across the nation.

Since February 24, our colleagues all over the country have found themselves in a war zone. We never believed that the invasion would reach such a terrible scale. We were not prepared for the shelling of civilian areas, or the use of destructive weapons in areas that have never before experienced conflict. But as a result of Russian aggression, ​​Ukrainian society has become more cohesive, stronger, and more efficient. And we, as legal empowerment organizations, are playing our role.

We are mobilizing all of our grassroots networks and resources to help our communities. People come to our paralegals and lawyers for legal assistance on documents for crossing the border, rights under martial law, temporary housing and resettlement, support for small businesses, and other matters. We are providing logistical support for the distribution of humanitarian aid, including food, clothing, and medicines. We are assisting with crisis management, helping to improve communication between local governments, residents, volunteers, and internally displaced persons.

We are staying strong for our communities. Even those who are in Russian-occupied territories continue to work. They are often the only ones who provide legal assistance to people in these areas now.

Stand with us.

We are forming a coalition of Ukrainian organizations and activists — including other Network members — who are strengthening the legal capacity of communities throughout the country. We will coordinate grassroots initiatives, share effective experiences, connect legal aid requests with a wider web of lawyers, and create humanitarian supply chains and safe evacuation routes. Please, support our communities and our work. Even in wartime, legal empowerment is essential.

Donate to our Coalition

To all of our friends and allies in the Legal Empowerment Network and beyond, we thank you for your solidarity. Our struggle is not only for the future of Ukraine, but for all who are defending justice at the frontiers of democracy.

With gratitude,

Yevgen Poltenko
Member of the Network Advisory Committee for the Legal Empowerment Network and Executive Director, Legal Development Network (LDN), Ukraine

The post Defending justice in Ukraine appeared first on Namati.

The law can be a powerful tool for advancing gender justice. When women and girls are equipped to know, use, and shape the laws that affect them, they can make crucial progress in dismantling structural barriers to equality.

The Legal Empowerment Network has hundreds of member organizations working toward gender justice. To commemorate International Women’s Day, we share inspiring initiatives by three of them.

Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST)

BLAST tackles systemic discrimination in the most marginalized communities. The garment industry, for example, employs over 4 million people in the country – mostly women – but has few mechanisms to protect their rights. BLAST mobilizes workers to form “self-help groups” that take up cases of labor rights violations, with a special focus on the experiences of women workers. The organization has also rolled out a mobile app called Sromik Jigyasha (Workers’ Queries), which conveys vital information on labor rights and connects workers to paralegals and lawyers who provide legal advice.

A BLAST paralegal conducts a mediation follow-up at a female client’s residence

Women’s Justice Initiative (WJI)

WJI seeks to end gender inequality and gender-based violence in Indigenous and rural communities in Guatemala. They offer rights education, leadership training, and legal services for adolescent girls and women in Kaqchikel, the local Mayan language. Dozens of graduates of these programs have gone on to become local leaders and grassroots legal advocates for their communities. WJI now coaches organizations in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras on the use of legal empowerment approaches to advancing gender equality.

Community advocates from Women’s Justice Initiative, Guatemala at a group retreat. (Photo credit: Women’s Justice Initiative)

Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA Uganda)

FIDA Uganda trains community members as paralegals who take on gender justice cases and address structural barriers to gender equality. In a recent initiative, women paralegals in six markets across Kampala city resolved to eliminate violence and harassment from their work environment. They held meetings with market leadership, calling attention to the under-reporting of cases and the absence of redress mechanisms. Their demands provide the basis for policy recommendations that FIDA Uganda is submitting to the Kampala Capital City Authority, for an upcoming ordinance on gender-based violence in city marketplaces.

FIDA Uganda trains paralegals on gender-based violence in marketplaces. (Credit: FIDA Uganda)

There is much we can learn from these three dynamo Network members, and the nearly one thousand others working to realize gender equity across the globe. In 2022, our Network is exploring what we can do together to spark collective learning and action at the intersection of gender and legal empowerment. Help set the agenda: take this short survey by March 11, 2022.

We are honored to walk with BLAST, WJI, FIDA Uganda and all of you to ensure women and girls everywhere can exercise their rights.

In solidarity,

Aakriti, Akhila, Abby, and the rest of the team supporting the Legal Empowerment Network

P.S. The upcoming convening of the Commission on Status of Women will focus on gender equality and climate change. Here’s a roundup of sessions touching on justice. Join our debrief event on March 29, 2022 to discuss the role of legal empowerment in addressing this important intersection of issues.

The post Gender justice trailblazers from across the world appeared first on Namati.

We are excited to share that the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund has reached its goal of raising and distributing $1 million USD in rapid-response, flexible grants.

The second and final round of grantees includes 27 outstanding groups, all members of our network, who are rising to meet the challenges of the ongoing pandemic.

In Thailand, Community Resource Centre Foundation (CRC) is supporting communities to bring about the enforcement of environmental laws and seek remedies for harms caused by industrial projects. With gatherings and travel still restricted, CRC is using digital tools to assist community members to attend virtual public hearings, submit evidence, and move advocacy campaigns online.

In Kenya, Keeping Alive Societies’ Hope (KASH) is working to meet the justice and healthcare needs of the populations most affected by HIV, who face increased police brutality, homelessness, and limited access to treatment in the pandemic. Through radio campaigns, KASH informs these groups of their rights, ensures they have access to the COVID-19 vaccine, and sensitizes members of the public to the injustices they face.

Check out the full list of grantees — selected by a panel of leaders from across our community — on the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund website.

Community members discuss local laws at a meeting in Kayin state, Myanmar. (Photo: Namati)

Members of the Legal Empowerment Network—now over 2,800 justice organizations from nearly every country—have struggled to rise to the challenges created by the pandemic while keeping their people safe. To support their vital work, we teamed up with several other partners in 2020 to create the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund. With this second round of grantees, we have now fulfilled its goal.

We recognize that $1 million is a drop in the ocean. With more than half the world’s population facing injustices they cannot remedy, we need substantial and consistent investment in the essential work of grassroots justice defenders. Our community has been working hard to make that happen. The Legal Empowerment Fund (LEF), which launched in September, is a direct result of years of collective action. Recently the LEF, which aims to raise $100 million over 10 years, announced its inaugural open call for proposals, with a deadline of February 18th, 2022.

While the COVID-19 Grassroots Justice Fund has concluded, our work towards securing long-term financing for justice continues.

To the grantees and the thousands of others fighting for justice in the most difficult of circumstances: we see you, we thank you, and we stand with you.

With love and solidarity,

Vivek, Stacey, Sonia, Abby, and the whole team supporting the Legal Empowerment Network

This post was originally sent as a mailer to our subscribers.
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