What Do We Know About Legal Empowerment? Mapping The Evidence
Working PaperWorking PaperMay 2014What do we knowabout legal empowerment?Mapping the EvidenceLaura Goodwin and Vivek Marunamati.org
Working PaperNamati1824 Jefferson Place NWWashington, D.C. 20036 USA 1 202 888-1086namati@namati.org
Working PaperMay 2014What do we knowabout legal empowerment?Mapping the EvidenceLaura Goodwin and Vivek Maru, May 2014namati.org
Working PaperContentsExecutive Summary4Introduction8Methodology9Definitions and Scope9Research Steps10Coding and Analysis12Snapshots of the Evidence14Regional Distribution14Evaluation Methods15Limits on Analysis17Legal Empowerment Approaches18Impacts24Expanding Agency24Legal Knowledge25Obtaining Remedies26Case/Dispute Resolution26Development Outcomes27Influencing Institutions31Negative and Null Impacts34Issues35Engaging Institutions37Regime Type39Scale41Conclusions and Recommendationsfor Further Research42Gaps in the Existing Evidence42Questions for Further Inquiry43References46Appendix 1: Coding Guide50Appendix 2: List of Experts Interviewed 53Executive SummaryThe UN estimates that 4 billion people live outside theprotection of the law.1 For these people the law is anabstraction, or a threat, but not something to use inexercising basic rights.“Legal empowerment” is about reversing that trend:about giving people the power to understand and usethe law. However, despite many examples of success,there is no comprehensive understanding of what legalempowerment programs can and have achieved.We review here all available evidence on civil societyled legal empowerment efforts. To our knowledge thisis the first review of its kind.There is substantial evidence available on the impact oflegal empowerment interventions. This review analyzes199 studies that address the results of a wide range oflegal empowerment work, such as women textileworkers learning to advocate for better laborconditions in Honduras, paralegals improving fairnessthrough mediation in Liberia, and citizens usingscorecards to improve local health services in India.The studies cover interventions on every majorcontinent, with Asia the most represented region, anddraw data from evaluation methods includingrandomized control trials, surveys, interviews, andqualitative case studies.The breadth and richness of this body of work suggestwe should revisit previous perceptions that there is littleevidence on what legal empowerment can achieve. Thestudies collected here not only provide a basis forunderstanding the accomplishments of prior work, butcan inform the design of future programs and researchinitiatives.Appendix 3: List of Evidence Includedin Analysis454In order to conduct analysis on such a large pool ofevidence, we followed a qualitative codingmethodology to map the evidence base and identifytrends and research gaps.
StrategiesLegal literacy is the most common approach covered bythe evidence in this review. Most interventions combinemultiple strategies, such as providing legal literacytraining alongside mediation services, or trainingpeople to file right to information (RTI) requests andthen engage in advocacy based on the results. Manyinterventions incorporate legal empowermentapproaches into the delivery of other basic services. Aprogram in Bangladesh, for example, trained healthworkers and teachers to assist families in obtaininglegal identity documents.2 These programs show howlegal empowerment can be integrated into broaderdevelopment efforts.ImpactsThe evidence shows legal empowerment programs havecreated a range of positive impacts, from increases inlegal knowledge and resolved conflicts to improvedhealth outcomes and institutional change. In total, 191studies addressed impacts on “citizens andconsciousness,” by which we mean changes thataffected individuals and communities. Of these, nearlyall identified at least one positive change. A smaller butstill substantial number – 111 studies – examinedimpacts on institutions. Of these, 89 reported that theintervention had a positive effect on institutional policyand/or practice.The most frequent changes the studies of legalempowerment programs report are increases in theagency of participants – both willingness to act andactual action – as well as enhanced legal knowledge.Programs with an advocacy component were the mostlikely to produce changes to agency.The next most common type of impact represented inthis evidence is the successful acquisition of a remedy,entitlement, or information. A Mexican organizationassisted prisoners to file information requests on theirbehavior records, as good conduct could lead to earlyrelease in certain cases.3 The prisoners’ efforts not onlyled to the release of their personal files, but more than40 percent of requesters were able to use thatinformation to achieve early release from prison inaccordance with the law.The existing evidence base shows that legalempowerment strategies have been successful inimproving health, strengthening education, andincreasing income. Ten studies reported improvementsin health indicators as a result of legal empowermentinterventions. In one well-known study in Uganda,community monitoring led to dramatic increases inclinic utilization rates and a 33 percent drop in childmortality in villages targeted by the program.4 Sevenevaluations showed connections between the programunder study and education outcomes, often measuredby improved test scores or a lower percentage ofstudents failing annual exams. The most commonapproaches in these programs were communityscorecards and legal literacy.In addition to demonstrated benefits to people’s livesand development outcomes, legal empowermentinterventions have also brought about change withingovernments and other institutions. Of all effects oninstitutions, the impacts of the interventions studiedtended to be concentrated in local level changes inpractice, which was reported in 59 studies. Overall,there are more impacts on the implementation of lawthan on the law itself.More than half of institutional change relates to theissue of accountability for basic services. Most of thesechanges were related to implementation – with 32interventions affecting local practice and 13interventions influencing provincial level practice.There is also a trend in the type of institutions engagedby these programs – the majority interacted directlywith service delivery agencies. The changes in localpractice are mostly improvements in the operations ofschools, health clinics, and other public entitiesthrough better attendance, effort, and accountability ofindividual teachers, nurses, and officials.An important frontier for the legal empowermentmovement going forward is translating the lessons ofgrassroots efforts into large-scale policy change. Theexisting studies show that such change is possible, butthere is a great deal more to learn about theprogrammatic and contextual factors that determinewhether a particular attempt succeeds. In addition tointerviews with relevant authorities to understand thefactors that influenced their decisions, historical inquiryand longitudinal studies may be needed to build moreevidence on what causes governments to change overthe long-term.What do we know about legal empowerment? Mapping the Evidence5
Working PaperWe discovered very few instances of negative impact.Ninety-seven percent of the studies reported at leastone positive change. In contrast, merely nine studies(4.5 percent) identified any negative change thatoccurred during the course of the intervention. A largernumber – 49 studies, 25 percent of the total evidence –sought to measure a certain type of impact, but in theend found no change. Most of these studies reportedthat the legal empowerment interventions had positiveimpacts in other areas. More research on negativeimpacts will help to determine the factors that mayfacilitate or obstruct change.Other Trends in the EvidenceOf all the interventions in this review, administrativeagencies were the type of institution most often engagedin the process of resolving justice problems.In total, 90 interventions engaged with at least oneadministrative body. The most common strategiesused when engaging with administrative agencies wereright to information laws, advocacy, participation ingovernance, and legal literacy. Almost all paralegal orcitizen advice bureau efforts in the review involvednavigating administrative processes.In contrast, there is little evidence on programs thatengaged with the military, national level courts, orhybrid public-private enterprises. More research isneeded on what legal empowerment strategies canachieve through interacting with these institutions.Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Survey 2012provided a proxy for coding the political regimesrelevant to each piece of evidence. Most existingresearch on the impact of legal empowerment coverscountries that are “free” or “partly free.” Only 10studies in this review examined an intervention in acountry categorized as “not free.” We have littleunderstanding about what legal empowerment effortscan achieve in repressive regimes.Conclusions and Recommendations for FurtherResearchSubstantial evidence exists on the impact of legalempowerment efforts around the globe. The evidenceshows legal empowerment has led to a range ofchanges: increases in legal knowledge and communityparticipation, the resolution of disputes, improvementsin health outcomes, and changes in institutional policyand practice.Despite this wealth of information, there are still gaps inour understanding of legal empowerment strategies.New research would be useful to fill these gaps. Unlikesome scientific research, we do not imagine that wewill ever arrive at a definitive answer to a question like“which legal empowerment strategy is most effectivein repressive regimes?” We recognize that all legalempowerment interventions are unique to some extent– interacting with the particularities of any givencontext. But more information about experiencesacross borders and approaches will benefitpractitioners grappling with their own specificchallenges.While some evidence exists on these aspects of legalempowerment work, additional research would beparticularly useful in building the knowledge base on: How legal empowerment can achieve institutionalchange at the national level; Medium and long terms effects of legalempowerment programs as well as thesustainability of positive impacts over time; Paralegal impact on development outcomes,beyond reporting the resolution of a client’simmediate legal need; Factors and program activities that help changes inlegal knowledge lead to other types of impact,such as increased agency; Use of human rights commissions, ombudsmanoffices, and public interest litigation.There are many potential determinants of programsuccess at the national or community level, includingdemographic distributions, social norms, power6
differentials, and political circumstances. Coding for andanalyzing these factors would uncover additional trendsrelated to the effectiveness of legal empowerment.The evidence base on legal empowerment will continueto grow – through further sharing of existing impactdata, the completion of ongoing research, and newinvestigations into what works and why. The evidencecollected in this review, and further research of thiskind, will allow practitioners to learn from one another,make evidence-based program decisions, andstrengthen the impacts created by legal empowerment.Executive Summary References1 Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, Making theLaw Work for Everyone: Volume I (2008), 3.2 UNICEF, “Birth Registration in Bangladesh.” 2010. Available at:http://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/Birth Registration(1).pdf.3 Juan Pablo Guerrero Amparán, “The Right to Know in Mexico: TheChallenge of Dissemination,” in Focus on Citizens: Public Engagement for Better Policy and Services, OECD Studies on Public Engagement (OECD, 2009), 258 to 260.4 Martina Bjorkman and Jakob Svensson, “Power to the People:Evidence from a Randomized Experiment on Community-basedMonitoring in Uganda,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 124:2(2009), 735-769.What do we know about legal empowerment? Mapping the Evidence7
Working PaperWhat do we knowabout legal empowerment?Mapping the EvidenceLaura Goodwin and Vivek Maru, May 2014IntroductionThe UN estimates that 4 billion people live outside theprotection of the law.5 For these people the law is anabstraction, or a threat, but not something they can useto exercise their basic rights.“Legal empowerment” is about reversing that trend:about giving people the power to understand and usethe law. A farmers’ association in Cambodia deployscommunity paralegals to support its members inprotecting their land rights. A community advice officein South Africa assists workers to access the pensionsto which they are entitled. A public interest laworganization in Argentina helps slum dwellers todemand clean water.Despite many examples of success, there is nocomprehensive understanding of what legalempowerment programs can and have achieved. Nor isthere a framework to guide future research based onidentified gaps in our existing knowledge.Understanding what works, where, and why canunderpin evidence-based decision making and theeffectiveness of these strategies as the field expands.We review here all available evidence on civil societyled legal empowerment efforts. To our knowledge thisis the first review of its kind.We begin the paper by describing our methodology. Wethen offer initial snapshots of the evidence wecollected, in particular the distribution across regionsand across evaluation methods. Before turning toanalysis, we highlight two key limitations that make itdifficult to draw comparative conclusions despite therich body of existing material.Those caveats notwithstanding, we offer insights in sixbroad areas: legal empowerment strategies; resultingimpacts; the kinds of problems legal empowermenthas addressed; the institutions engaged in the process;the political regimes in which these programs takeplace; and, last, the scale of these interventions. Weconclude by identifying gaps in existing research andkey substantive questions that merit further inquiry.With thanks This effort has benefitted from many contributors. In particular, we would like tothank Gregory Barrett, Daniel Brinks, Varun Gauri, John Gaventa, Bilal Siddiqi, andMichael Woolcock for their guidance in defining the scope and methodology ofthis review. We express our deep gratitude to Hazim Al-Eryani, Srinivas Ayyagari,Denise Bell, Luciana Debenedetti, Beth Goldberg, David Kienzler, Amarachi Utah,and Allison Vuillaume for their invaluable assistance with researching, reviewing,and/or coding studies. We are also extremely appreciative of those whocommented on an earlier draft of this paper, including Emily Brown (Oxfam),Marco de Swart (Oxfam), Adrian Di Giovanni (IDRC), Pilar Domingo (ODI), WilliamEvans (DFID), Tamar Ezer (OSF), Macha Farrant (DFID), Suella Fernandes (AfricaJustice Foundation), Martin Gramatikov (HiiL), Shelley Inglis (UNDP), Ralf Jurgens(OSF), Monjurul Kabir (UNDP), Zaza Namoradze (OSJI), Joss Saunders (Oxfam),Lotta Teale (OSJI), and Meghan Watkinson (CIDA), and countless others whohelped shape the original scope of inquiry, recommended additional pieces ofimpact evidence for this review, or provided other advice along the way.This paper was originally circulated in May 2014. In June, we made minorrevisions to the section on Definitions and Scope.
For the purpose of this review, we defined civil societylegal empowerment efforts as those that seek toincrease the capacity of people to understand and usethe law. We interpret “law” broadly, to mean not justlegislation but also regulations and policy.The review focuses on work by civil societyorganizations. We did consider studies of two quasistate institutions – human rights commissions andombudsman offices – because of the distinctive rolethose institutions play in serving as advocates for thegeneral public. As with public interest litigation andissue-based advocacy, we only included studies ofhuman rights commissions or ombudsman offices ifthe efforts by those institutions sought to increase thecapacity of citizens to exercise their own rights.Our definition of legal empowerment covers a diverserange of organizations and strategies. It includesefforts to support people in pursuing a remedy to abreach of individual liberty. It also includes, forexample, interventions that enable people to monitorthe extent to which local service delivery institutionslike health clinics and schools comply with the laws orpolicies that govern them.i After discussion withseveral experts we concluded that, despite thisbreadth, the common goals uniting this body of workwould allow for meaningful comparative analysis.We adopted an expansive definition of “evidence.” Weincluded any documents that addressed impact orchanges resulting from a legal empowermentintervention, including data based on randomizedcontrol trials, quantitative survey research, qualitativeinterviews, focus group discussions, participatorytechniques, and case studies. These documentsappeared in a range of locations, including peerreviewed journals, grey literature from donor agenciesand implementing organizations, and self-standingprogram evaluations.In identifying studies to include in the review, welooked for interventions with a “process” component.Legal empowerment strategies focus on not only a justoutcome but also, crucially, on the ability of people toengage in law-related processes. An advocacycampaign to pass a law against gender-based violence,for example, might well lead to greater protection ofwomen’s rights. We would not include an evaluation ofit, however, unless the advocacy effort had an explicitfocus on increasing people’s participation in thelawmaking process.In order to discover what we really know about legalempowerment, it seemed necessary to include allavailable information, regardless of type or source.Each data collection method has its own strengthswhen it comes to measuring the outcomes of legalempowerment. While some view randomized controltrials as ideal, in our view, such experiments areneither possible nor desirable in all cases.7MethodologyDefinitions and ScopeSimilarly, we excluded most studies examining publicinterest litigation, even though those lawsuits oftentook on crucial human rights issues. In the fewexamples we did include, the organizations involveddid not treat clients as victims requiring the help oftechnical experts. Rather, the organizations made aconcerted effort to build the ability of its clients tounderstand, and ultimately drive, the process oflitigation.Case studies and open-ended qualitative interviewquestions may better capture the complexity of contextand how interventions affect people’s daily lives.Participatory methods are specifically intended toincorporate the insight of the ultimate constituents oflegal empowerment programs. Overall, mixedmethods and triangulation of results from differentsources may provide a better basis of knowledge thanany one data collection method alone.As the following section explains, this review is basedon a quantitative mapping of the available evidence,i - Such initiatives are sometimes described as advancing “social accountability.” Though one of us has previously described “legalempowerment” and “social accountability” as distinct, complementary traditions ,6 we included “social accountability” interventions in thisreview whenever they met our definition of legal empowerment.What do we know about legal empowerment? Mapping the Evidence9
Working Paperusing coding. A future paper will analyze the evidencein a more qualitative way, comparing in more detail thefindings of particular studies. Research StepsThe research team used five strategies to find andcompile legal empowerment evidence: examination ofexisting literature reviews, general online searches,searc
We review here all available evidence on civil society-led legal empowerment efforts. To our knowledge this is the first review of its kind. There is substantial evidence available on the impact of legal empowerment interventions. This review analyzes legal empowerment work, such as women textile workers learning to advocate for better labor
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