Africa

Overview
The LACEC African sub-program was launched in June 2003 with the organization of the First All-African clinical legal education (CLE) Colloquium in Durban, South Africa. The Colloquium generated tremendous enthusiasm among participating university staff and faculty from 20 African countries to launch and promote legal clinics on the continent. Since 2003, the Justice Initiative has been engaged in providing financial and technical support to universities interested in establishing a law clinic and run social justice courses and practical activities for students. The lack of interactive and skills-oriented teaching programs at most African law faculties, as well as the need for a wider corpus of young lawyers to undertake social justice and public interest work determined the Justice Initiative to develop projects that would tackle these needs.

The projects launched starting 2003-2005 mainly focused on developing the local capacity at partner universities in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Nigeria to establish and run university legal aid clinical programs and initiate outreach and community social justice initiatives. In addition to supporting individual programs, the Justice Initiative also co-organizes jointly with the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban annual teacher training programs for all its partner clinics. Since 2004, 5 teacher training workshops were organized in Durban that targeted and provided skills development opportunity to over one hundred clinicians in Africa.

In February 2005, jointly with Network of University Legal Aid Institutions-NULAI from Nigeria, the Justice Initiative organized the Second all-Africa CLE Colloquium for 60 participants from 17 countries on the continent. Major outcomes of the event consisted of the full endorsement of the clinical methodology as most effective one in promoting public interest and social justice lawyering, as well as the identified emerging need in promoting legal education reform in Africa that would incorporate the legal clinics.

In 2006 – 2007, the Justice Initiative has been cooperating with the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban to compile a manual on establishing and running university legal aid and community empowerment programs in Africa. The manual is expected to be completed at the end of 2007 and published beginning of 2008.

Objectives
A. to support the creation of university legal clinics in countries where the Justice Initiative is actively engaged;
B. to promote the institutionalization and accreditation of established legal clinics at partner universities;
C. to provide capacity building and training support for involved university faculty with the main goal of sustaining the clinical programs;
D. to provide the opportunity for existing clinical programs to undertake social justice, public interest and fundraising activities in the future.

Projects and Activities
1. Individual Support to Legal Clinics:
Since 2003, the Justice Initiative has been providing individual support to clinical programs in Mozambique, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Nigeria. The support consisted of technical advise and guidance on program development and set up, as well as capacity building for teachers to undertake the interactive clinical legal education courses.
1.1. Eduardo Mondlane University (EMU), Maputo, Mozambique. In April 2003, the EMU opened the first university legal clinic program in the country with 8 students attending the interactive lawyering skills development training. To date, the legal clinic enrolls 24 law students that provide legal aid and representation in family, labor, and housing matters to more than 250 clients per year. In addition to legal aid in individual cases, the clinic also provides community education and legal literacy courses to prisoners in Maputo Prison since October 2005 and recently partnered with Mozambique League for Human Rights (a human rights NGO) to train rural community paralegals in law and human rights.
1.2. Fourah Bay College (FBC), Freetown, Sierra Leone In 2001, OSI supported an initiative of Yale Law School to establish a clinical legal education program at the FBC [LINK] in Freetown. This inaugural effort to introduce clinical education in Sierra Leone was an opportunity to educate and train a new generation of leaders on human rights for tomorrow while providing direct support to existing reform efforts and to human rights victims. From 2003, the Justice Initiative participated in the development and support of the program at FBC human rights clinic. The clinic provides legal assistance and legal literacy courses on human rights related issues relevant for Sierra Leone and enrolls 20 students. Today clinic’s activities vary from individual case work to human rights awareness and public education work and campaigns. In addition, in 2004 - 2005, the clinic was engaged in a joint project with the Justice Initiative on creating and supporting paralegals in rural communities, a project recently endorsed and supported by the World Bank as a nation-wide program.
1.3. Mekelle University Faculty of Law (MULF), Tigrai, Ethiopia Starting August 2004, the Justice Initiative has been supporting the MULF in Tigre to develop its Legal Aid Center (the Center) at the faculty. It was established with the goals to promote and develop CLE in Ethiopia and to provide free legal services to the marginalized groups in society. Since 2004, around 300 students have received practice oriented legal education and counseled around 1,700 clients in the past 3 years. The Center was also involved in providing training to the region’s Social Court judges and trained 42% of the judges. It also conducted advocacy workshop for vulnerable groups. In 2007, the MULF Center was contacted by other 2 universities in Ethiopia to share its experiences in CLE and providing legal aid to vulnerable populations. In addition, a national legal education reform effort is underway to incorporate CLE as one of the mandatory components for legal education curricula. The Justice Initiative will continue to provide support to MULF Center in promoting CLE and establishing a network of legal clinics in the country in the coming years.

2. Nigeria: CLE and NULAI Capacity Building
The project was initiated jointly by the Justice Initiative and NULAI in early 2004 as a follow up to the 2003 Durban Colloquium. In February 2004, it co-organized the first Nigerian CLE colloquium, jointly with freshly registered Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI), an association of universities willing to establish and promote CLE programs and methodology across the country. As a result of the meeting, 4 universities volunteered to pilot legal aid clinics – University of Maiduguri, Abia State University, University of Uyo, and Adesin Ajenkule University. The pilots started operating late 2004, enrolling 100 students in total and providing legal aid and empowerment to various vulnerable groups and individuals in more than 100 cases. Each year starting 2005, the Justice Initiative and NULAI organize capacity building teacher trainings for Nigerian professors, student-focused mock trial and counseling competitions, as well as community education skills development for the pilot clinics. In 2006, the first Street Law training workshop was organized for teachers in Nigeria. More than 500 teachers participated in the event during its 2-weeks course. In May 2006, a new model clinical curriculum was finalized and approved by NULAI member universities and was presented to decision makers in the country for official approval. Later in 2006, the Nigerian Bar Council already endorsed the model curriculum and the legal clinics as one of most effective teaching methodology for practical skills and values.
In addition to capacity building efforts, NULAI undertook jointly with Justice Initiative Africa program an initiative to promote the visibility of legal clinics and their benefits for access to justice before various justice actors and donor organizations active in Nigeria. In September 2007, a nation-wide one-day stakeholders’ meeting was organized to present the results of the three years of NULAI and clinical activities as well as to launch a debate on the role of legal clinics in promoting social justice in Nigeria.