Legal Aid to the Rural Population
Legal Aid to the Rural Population
Project Period: January 2008 – December 2010
Project Area: Dien Bien, Lai Chau, and Lao Cai provinces in the northwest of Vietnam
Budget: USD 800,000
Donor: Danida
Partner Organization: Vietnamese Lawyers' Association
Result of the Action
The immediate objective is that the awareness and knowledge of the law and the legal rights and opportunities has increased among local groups, especially the ethnic minorities in the rural area of Dien Bien, Lao Cai, and Lai Chau. Special focus is on access to land, land user rights and land tenure to secure the food-security of the poor people in the mountains. In order to make the target population making use of their legal rights and opportunities, the first step is that they are aware of these rights and opportunities. Opportunities, in this case are not only individual opportunities, but also opportunities on behalf of the community in the village. In this respect the project is supporting influence in the local development planning. At the individual basis the legal rights and opportunities are especially emphasised on land administration issues.
The project has opened 3 legal aid centres and is in process of conducting 450 mobile legal aid clinics where legal aid will be provided for free to 43,500 poor and disadvantaged villagers. With the important role of village heads to the community in mind the project has conducted 39 training course for 2,001 village heads over the 3 years of implementation. The project has supported the local population and already existing FGs in getting into dialogue with the local authorities. 268 meetings with 12,283 participants were organized to discuss existing local development plans, on-going defense-security and recent social-economic achievements in 3 target province. Moreover, updated legal information is available for interested people in the target provinces with 48,500 legal hand books were distributed.
ADDA's Role and Its Degree of Involvement in the Action
ADDA is the lead manager and the project is implemented in collaboration with the Vietnamese Lawyers' Association. ADDA is involved in the project in terms of monitoring, supervision and financial management.
