The International Development Law Organization (IDLO), Cordaid and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) are organizing an Implementer Dialogue on “Accessing Justice: Alternative Dispute Resolution in Somalia.” The Dialogue will convene practitioners in the fields of rule of law and access to justice to discuss findings from IDLO’s latest research on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) centers in Somalia, while also providing an opportunity for exchange of lessons learned and good practices on strengthening linkages between formal and customary and informal (CIJ) justice mechanisms in diverse contexts.

To ensure access to justice for all and support the development of peaceful and inclusive societies and effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16, justice systems must innovate and meet people’s everyday justice needs.  The Implementer Dialogue will convene practitioners in the fields of rule of law and access to justice to discuss findings from IDLO’s latest report on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) centers in Somalia, while also providing an opportunity for exchange of lessons learned and good practices on strengthening linkages between formal and customary and informal (CIJ) justice mechanisms in diverse contexts. Attached is the invitation letter and concept note.

The dialogue forms part of a series of engagement with implementing partners working to improve access to justice and enhance performance of justice sector institutions in their respective geographic areas of focus in order to develop high-impact and high-quality programming . Previous dialogues in this series have proven to foster positive exchanges on lessons generated from programs and created opportunities for joint initiatives and partnerships.

We look forward to welcoming you. For any questions, please email Zainab Malik (Program Development Specialist, IDLO) (zmalik@idlo.int)

Background and Concept

Development partners are under pressure to account for their overall performance and demonstrate results towards their strategic objectives. In addition, there is a need to learn from what works and what does not, in order to inform choices at the strategic level. To facilitate these accountability and learning processes, many development partners have adopted agency-level results frameworks and specific systems for monitoring, reporting on, and learning from, agency-level results. The development and implementation of these systems have proven to be challenging, especially for development partners working in the Rule of Law sector, due to the complexity of international rule of law assistance.

Both the Department of Stabilization and Humanitarian Aid (DSH) at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and IDLO worked in 2019 on their approaches for synthesizing, and reporting on, program results information. DSH developed its Results Framework (RF) in 2018 and started revising the indicators underlying its RF in 2019. To support this exercise and further reflect upon its approach for synthesizing program information, it organized dialogue sessions with implementing partners on "aggregation & synthesis" in the summer of 2019. However, the focus in the results framework remains on quantitative indicators to be measured at the project level. More qualitative results, or results from their policy influencing efforts, are not being systemically collected and analyzed yet.

IDLO adopted its agency-level Results Framework in 2018 and drafted specific processes for synthesizing, and reporting on, program results information in 2019. In support of these activities, it organized an expert consultation on Monitoring practices in the RoL sector in 2018.

This expert consultation on "synthesizing program results information" will build on the previous dialogue and expert sessions and will focus on exchanging experiences with developing and implementing approaches for synthesizing program results information.

Objective

This expert consultation organized by IDLO and the Dutch MFA brings together monitoring, evaluation, learning and reporting experts of development agencies that operate in the rule of law sector. The aim of the consultation is to share lessons learned, challenges encountered, and possible solutions when developing and implementing approaches for synthesizing program results information. The consultation will mainly focus on qualitative synthesizing approaches, instead of on standardized indicator based approaches, as the latter have received more attention during previous events.

Please note that this is a closed event. If you are interested in learning more, you may contact IDLO for more information (idlo@idlo.int).

Issues of significance in the lives of women and girls such as family disputes, access to land, and gender-based violence are often resolved by chiefs, elders, religious leaders or similar customary and informal actors because formal justice systems are not always accessible, affordable or familiar to communities. On top of that, state judicial systems can be seen as complicated, with slow, inflexible and often confrontational processes. However, these customary and informal systems often fail to uphold women’s human rights.

So how can we realize justice for women and girls who use these systems? And how can customary and informal justice contribute to women finding justice? What are the pros and cons of these systems? What are promising developments and opportunities in the near future?

INSPIRING SPEAKERS

• Fiona Hukula, an anthropologist from Papua New Guinea, will talk about the pros and cons of customary justice and the practice of witchcraft and sorcery allegations against women in her country.
• Laisa Masuhud Alamia, a human rights lawyer from the Philippines, is an expert in the use of Shari’a law especially when it concerns issues of particular relevance to Muslim women, such as Female Genital Cutting, Adoption and the Care of Orphans, Women’s Religious Leadership, and Child Marriages.
• Jemimah Aluda, a lawyer and women’s rights activist from Kenya, works on empowering women in community justice cases and is committed to the creation of a society that is free of all forms of discrimination against women and girls.

Join a dialogue with these renowned experts and practitioners and share your thoughts and ideas on how to deliver justice for women and girls.Wednesday, October 9, 2019, Welcome at 15:00, start at 15:30 – 17:00 sharp. The dialogue will continue during drinks after the Talks.

SPEAKERS

The Justice for Women Report, released in March 2019 by the High-level Group on Justice for Women, identifies the main barriers to women’s rights and gender equality both globally and in the Netherlands. Including intimate partner violence, discrimination at work, gaps in legal identity and exclusion from decision making, to name a few.

IDLO invites you to discuss the applicability of this report´s recommendations on policies in the Netherlands and abroad, together with policy makers and civil society representatives working in and on the Justice and Security sector. Rea Abada Chiongson, IDLO’s Senior Legal Advisor on Gender will present the recommendations and strategies outlined in the report.

A specific focus of the discussion will be the domestic application of the international Women, Peace and Security agenda. Can this report be used as a stepping stone for a domestic pillar of the Dutch National Action Plan (NAP) 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which will be developed in 2020?the past decades, there has been an increasing number of calls to ensure the centrality of gender concerns in the design, implementation and evaluation of all international development policies, programs and other interventions. Nevertheless, integrating gender in rule of law and justice work continues to be extremely challenging - particularly in situations where programming occurs in fragile and conflict situations.

To access new or deeper knowledge and to enhance connectivity among practitioners, Communities of Practice can be critical tools; however, devising sustainable Communities of Practice that address complex development problems effectively is often challenging.

Organized in partnership with IDLO, and building on the 2018 KPSRL Annual Conference session related to Communities of Practice, this dedicated workshop brings together practitioners to share and exchange good practices and lessons learned, to help foster effective Communities of Practice in the development sector.

The key objectives of the workshop are to:

• share reflections from pilot and established initiatives;
• gather experiences and good practices from participants and facilitators in Communities of Practice;
• review and exchange on updates to a Community of Practice Toolkit (shared as part of the workshop), incorporating lessons; and
• explore where there may be opportunities for greater collaboration of Community of Practice facilitators for continued knowledge exchange.

The workshop will be hosted by Pamela Kovacs, IDLO’s Research and Learning Manager with expert insights from Kaushik Roy and Francesca Rappocciolo, IDLO’s Learning and Knowledge Management Initiative team. To inspire deliberations, experiences and lessons will be shared from building a Community of Practice at IDLO in relation to customary and informal justice.

A light lunch will be served following the workshop.

Please RSVP by sending an email to thehague@idlo.int.

On the eve of the Task Force on Justice Partner Forum, IDLO will host a launch event to encourage dialogue on the engagement between formal and customary and informal justice systems. Justice leaders from Kenya and Kyrgyzstan will share their national experiences and insights on ongoing reforms, complementing formal courts and curbing practices breaching human rights while contributing to political stabilization efforts.

• Ms. Zamira Mamakeeva, Chairwoman of the Association of Aksakal Courts and Member of the Aksakal Court in Bishkek
• Prof. Justice Joel Ngugi, Judge of the High Court and Chairperson of the Alternative Justice Systems Task-Force

To better understand the complexities of informal justice mechanisms, IDLO is launching two Briefs:

• Policy / Issue Brief,presenting findings and policy recommendations for engaging with customary and informal justice systems, and providing information on features and challenges related to engagement
• Practitioner Brief, offering a set of concrete tools, recommendations and good practices to support engagement with customary and informal justice systems

Customary and informal justice systems are an integral pathway to justice, indispensable to the realization of access to justice for all as reflected in Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.

While precise data is difficult to discern, recurring estimates suggest 80 to 90 per cent of legal disputes in developing, fragile and post-conflict states are resolved using customary and informal justice systems. Users of these systems are disproportionately women and vulnerable groups - the poor and remote, marginalized, and minority populations.

While women have made great strides in bringing about gender-responsive laws, available evidence consistently points to serious gaps in ensuring legal protection for women and girls.  Recent figures have shown that inadequate legal protection affect over 2.5 billion women. Discriminatory laws or legal provisions persist in various fields – employment, finance, land and natural resources, agriculture, rural development, among others. Social inequalities, lack of access to resources and opportunities, and the absence of women’s voices in many areas of public and political life continue to exacerbate these gender inequalities. Furthermore, unresponsive justice systems impede women from claiming justice where their rights are violated.

IDLO, in partnership with Women, Business and the Law, is organizing a panel discussion on the impact of laws on the economic rights of women.  

The discussions will explore the main findings of the World Bank’s Women Business and Law (WBL) 2018 report, which provides unique, objective and measurable data on laws and regulations restricting women's opportunities and examines where legal gaps are pressing. 

IDLO will present two studies which illustrate in greater detail how legal and justice barriers affect women’s economic rights: Women Entrepreneurs’ Access to Justice in Jordan, conducted by IDLO in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and Women, Food, Land: Exploring Rule of Law Linkages, which examines a number of key intersecting challenges that affect women’s food security and land rights. 

Details: 

10:00 – 12:00  |  Tuesday, September 25, 2018  |  IDLO Office, Hofweg 9E, The Hague, Netherlands

Light lunch and refreshments will be served after

Speakers:

• Tanya Primiani, Senior Investment Policy Officer, Women, Business and the Law, World Bank
• Pamela Kovacs, Legal and Research Analyst, Department of Research and Learning, IDLO
• Rea Abada Chiongson, Senior Legal Advisor on Gender, IDLO

RSVP:

Please RSVP to IDLO’s The Hague office here