Download the file - United Nations Rule of Law

ership. Legal Empowerment of the Poor reforms,by their very nature, are long-term undertakings.7. Key actors monitor Legal Empowerment of thePoor progress for learning and adaptation. Itshows a level of commitment when country actorsestablish a system for tracking Legal Empowermentof the Poor reform progress, and activelymanage implementation by adapting to emergingcircumstances over time. However, learning canalso apply to country decision-makers who havebeen able to observe Legal Empowerment of thePoor policies, practices, and programmemes fromother countries and who can selectively adoptthem for their own use.8.Donors club together into a joint programmemingstrategy, or multi-donor group (e.g., through theHarmonisation Alignment and Coordination approach).This option provides another possibilityfor outsiders to assess the possibility for change.While external support can be a strong catalystfor change, external micro-management can alsoeasily render the process too burdensome forreformers and policy champions within government.It is important that the donor role in LegalEmpowerment of the Poor be supportive and notself-defeating.Before adopting any of these options, thoughtshould be given as to whether to engage in severalLegal Empowerment of the Poor domains,or sectors, at once, or to proceed with one andthen transition to others. Also, one must be onguard to ensure that a policy chosen does notsimply increase state power and patronage in waysinconsistent with pro-poor objectives. Agrarianreform has often gone wrong, with the supposedbeneficiaries becoming victims. The best guaranteeagainst such perverse developments is to bring thepoor themselves into the policy initiation process.Civil societies, NGOs, membership-based organisationsof employers and of workers, coalitions andnetworks all have a major role to play in generatingand articulating bottom-up demand. The participatoryobjective often goes hand- in-hand withdecentralisation.But the advantage of community engagement anddecentralised structures is not a universal law. Insome cases, central authorities may be the bestallies for the poor, because they can potentiallysidestep local spheres of interest in support ofmarginalized and disadvantaged communities. Theycould serve as counterweight for the poor and minoritiesagainst what may be entrenched control oflocal government by anti-poor factions. A concreteexample is the key role played by the federal governmentof Brazil in combating forced labour in remoterural areas of the country (ILO 2001: 25).Policy ChampionsThe degree of initial government support for anypolicy derives from domestic leaders who share aperception of a problem and who have agreed onhow to solve it. One or a few of these people mayemerge as policy champions, or entrepreneurs,who make a policy their signature issue and driveit forward over time. Securing political will for anynew course of action needs champions to bringother government actors on board and precludepolicy spoilers from blocking introduction of thepolicy. Having strong advocates at high levels ofgovernment is vital to getting the legislative andexecutive arms to cooperate and follow through onpolicy reform.Policy champions within government may beemboldened by backing and pressure from civilsociety within the country. To start a controversialpolicy such as Legal Empowerment of the Poor,which threatens many vested interests (see below),domestic policy advocacy is especially important.That is another reason why organising by the poorand their representation of their rights are basic to288