Indigenous communities in Kenya made history last week by marching to the nation’s capital to demand official registration for their communal lands

Indigenous, pastoralist communities in Kenya made history last week by marching to the nation’s capital to demand official registration for their communal lands.

This was unprecedented and the culmination of years of effort to empower communities to understand and claim their land rights. 

What are the program objectives? 

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is funded by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) as commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to organize support measures for the "Network of Excellence for Land Governance in Africa (NELGA)".

These are dark days if you care about justice. New estimates reveal that over 5 billion people live outside the protection of the law. These are people who can be driven from their land, intimidated by violence, and excluded from society.

Against the backdrop of this staggering figure, community paralegals offer hope.

Community paralegals demystify law and empower people to advocate for themselves. They are at the heart of the growing global movement for justice. But to date, they have been largely ignored by scholars and writers.

Celebrating Great Deeds in Legal Empowerment

The biennial Grassroots Justice Prize competition is the world’s only competition recognizing grassroots organizations and institutions, large and small, across the globe, that are working to put the power of law into people’s hands.

This year, we are offering 3 prizes of $10,000 USD.

Demand for recognition and protection of indigenous and community land rights is at an all-time high. ILC members around the world are mobilizing to support communities to claim and defend their land rights.

Landscapes need to be restored. The growing global population needs enough food to eat. How can both needs be met at once?

Odisha is a front-runner in women’s land ownership, much of it owing to government policies from the 1980s. But has ownership led to empowerment?

Surrounded by sun-drenched paddy fields interspersed with jackfruit and banana trees, Sanakusupadu is a hamlet in Odisha’s tribal-dominated district of Rayagada. Here, almost every married woman owns land.

On February 14th we will examine the most effective strategies to combat women’s diminishing land rights within communities.

Dynamic country portfolios combine detailed narratives with Linked Open Data to provide comprehensive overviews of land governance systems

Developed in partnership with local experts and organizations, Land Portal’s latest country portfolios for Kenya, South Africa and Zambia on the Land Portal offer an in-depth look at both the current and historical land governance situation as well as access to a wide range of

Across the globe, grassroots organizations are combatting injustice by helping people to understand, use, and shape the laws that affect them. Few of them receive the recognition they deserve. We want to change that. 

In 2015, Namati launched the world’s first competition to celebrate great deeds in the field of legal empowerment. This year, the biennial Grassroots Justice Prize returns -- bigger and better than before. 

Deadline: 01/10/2017

“Protecting our land for a prosperous future”