Many Roads to Justice: The Law Related Work of Ford ... - UNDP

2 5 6 CA S E ST U D I E Swas focused on university-based law clinics. Seminars add substantivelyto the groups’work, reinforce their mutual reliance, andprovide opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences.Initiative publications, disseminated to policymakers and the privatelegal profession, as well as PIL groups, attempt to identifynew possibilities for activists and to provide a forum for debate. Ito ffers news bulletins on developments in the field, documents,resource lists, job postings, and other materials on its website andby e-mail. The electronic network is also used to survey activitiesand needs. The Initiative invites requests for technical assistanceand helps groups connect with appropriate resources.By all accounts, the Foundation’s programming approach toP I L in Eastern Europe, including the Initiative network support,has been extremely important in promoting the network’s cohesiveness,especially its regional aspect. Groups within the networkemphasize different factors that they believe are responsiblefor this success. For example, some credit the history of cooperationat the earlier symposia. They doubt that network supportcould be used successfully without some similar grounding. Manypeople agree that the Initiative’s independence from any particularorganization enables it to keep the needs of the network paramount,and to avoid being dominated by any one group’s needs,expertise, or interests.Some interviewees believe it would be more practical ande ffective to locate such an entity within the region it serves. T h e ybelieve this would allow more direct contact between the structureand PIL groups, greater access to its offices and services, andmore engagement in the issues groups face and their changingneeds. Others interviewed believe an outside locus increasesawareness of and access to external resources for use in theregion. More than one interviewee emphasized that the eff e c t i v e-ness of such an entity depends less on where it is than on how it isrun, and on the quality of its relationships with the groups it isdesigned to serve.C ro s s - S e c t o ral Prog ramming and Gra n t m a k i n gBy employing a grantmaking strategy wider than PIL—onethat crosses sectors but targets a disadvantaged population