UNGA Resolution on LEP

UNGA Resolution on LEP

On 21 December 2009, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted its second resolution on legal empowerment of the poor and eradication of poverty, with 69 co-sponsors from all regions of the world. The composition of co-sponsors includes 12 Least Development Countries, 20 G77 Members, 21 EU Members as well as 19 OECD-DAC member countries. As a follow-up to the procedural resolution 63/142 of 11 December 2008 and the report of the Secretary-General (A/64/133), this substantive resolution is a clear testimony of the priority that member states are attaching to this innovative agenda for development.

Through this resolution, the General Assembly:

• Takes note of the diversity of national experiences in legal empowerment of the poor, recognizes progress made in advancing legal empowerment of the poor in national strategies, stresses the importance of sharing of national best practices and welcomes the ongoing work of the UN funds and programmes (OP2 and OP3);

• Emphasizes the need to accord the highest priority to poverty eradication within the United Nations development agenda, while stressing the importance of addressing the causes and challenges of poverty through integrated, coordinated and coherent strategies at the national, intergovernmental and inter-agency levels (OP4);

• Encourages countries to continue their efforts in the area of legal empowerment of the poor, including access to justice and the realization of rights related to property, labour and business, addressing both formal and informal settings by taking into account those dimensions in their national policies and strategies (OP 9);

• Calls upon the international community to continue to give priority to the eradication of poverty and calls upon countries in a position to do so to support the national efforts of developing countries in promoting legal empowerment of the poor through provision of adequate, predictable financial resources or technical assistance (OP 11);

• Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session on the implementation of the resolution, as part of the follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit and to continue the consideration of legal empowerment of the poor (OP12).

The GA resolution provides a renewed impetus to UNDP's Initiative on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (LEP), as it firmly anchors the concept within the United Nations General Assembly, recognizing that it is essential, and an imperative, for effective eradication of poverty. The LEP core team in UNDP stands ready to engage with UNDP country offices, development partners and other stakeholders partners to support various local, national and regional initiatives to strengthen property and land rights, rule of law and access to justice, labor rights and rights to entrepreneurship for effective and meaningful empowerment of the poor.

Legal Empowerment of the Poor

Helen Clark: ‘The time is right for Legal Empowerment of the Poor’

On 23 October, Helen Clark participated alongside Mary Robinson, George Soros and others in a high-level roundtable discussion on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, jointly organized by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNDP as part of the European Development Days celebration in Stockholm. The participants included development partners, international organization, civil society and academia.

Helen Clark stated that poverty reduction was not achieved simply through economic growth or trade. Legal empowerment of the poor, she said, could be critical in breakthrough strategies for achieving and sustaining the Millennium Development Goals. The Administrator further stressed that the high-level event on MDGs in 2010 would be an opportunity to review various options and that legal empowerment of the poor offered an alternative, bottom-up approach to achieving the Goals. She concluded, ‘...the time is right for this, the view is a new and compelling angle in the fight against poverty and with the Millennium Development Goals review coming up next year, I think it will really make the most of it.’

George Soros, Mary Robinson, and a number of participants emphasized the need for greater coherence and coordinated action. They called upon UNDP to build and lead an alliance, with various actors, to maximize coordination and synergy in various national and international efforts for legal empowerment of the poor.

justice in Indonesia

Access to justice for the poor in Indonesia

Photo: UNICEF/HQ97-0690
Josh EsteyLegal assistance and access to information are two of the essential services offered by the Legal Empowerment and Assistance of the Disadvantaged (LEAD) project in Indonesia, which is designed to help make access to justice a reality at the community level. By focusing on access to legal services, legal and human rights awareness and legal capacity development, this joint initiative of UNDP and Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) tackles the challenge from two perspectives: building the capacity of civil society and communities to understand and demand their rights and then opening up channels of constructive engagement between government and civil society.

The starting point for the project was a comprehensive assessment of access to justice for the most disadvantaged populations in the post-conflict provinces of West Kalimantan, Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi, as well as in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam. It found that economic concerns presented the strongest challenge to access to justice among the thousands of people interviewed – a reflection of the priorities in many Indonesian communities where people struggle daily to earn a basic living.

As a woman in the village of Kailia-Lia explained, “When we have our own homes..., when our children can have an adequate education, and when we can live safely and peacefully and have enough food and drink for each day. If we can achieve this, then we will have justice.”

UNDP alongside other UN agencies, the World Bank and civil society organizations, collaborated with BAPPENAS to draft the country’s National Strategy on Access to Justice. This strategy, which focuses on society’s most disadvantaged and marginalized groups, recognizes access to justice for the poor as a critical means of eradicating poverty and recommends that government policies across all sectors aim explicitly to reach the most vulnerable persons and communities.