Advocacy: Justice and the SDGs

Download Justice: Advocacy and the SDGs

Advocacy: Justice and the SDGs is a toolkit is for civil society, activists, and policy practitioners who are working to promote legal empowerment and access to justice.

Around the world, billions of people live without the full protection of the law. Legal empowerment reformers can successfully advance access to justice, particularly for the poor and marginalized, but to scale- up their work they need political and financial support. A national justice plan can help achieve this.

From now until 2030, governments will be working to achieve the SDGs and Goal 16’s promise to provide “access to justice for all”. The SDGs provide a tactically strong way to advocate for much-needed justice reforms that will benefit the poor, marginalized, and excluded.

This toolkit will teach you everything you need to know to enable you to initiate the creation of a national justice plan for your country.

It provides a step by step guide to steer you though the entire process: from broadening your understanding of the SDGs and how they can help your advocacy, to how you can hold your government accountable to the justice commitments it has made.

This toolkit is a complementary resource to the TAP Network Goal 16 Advocacy Toolkit,  which provides civil society and other nongovernmental stakeholders with guidance on how to engage with their governments and other local, regional or international stakeholders to support the planning, implementation, follow-up and accountability of Goal 16 more broadly.

The Advocacy: Justice and the SDGs toolkit includes guidance, tools, and tips which will help you to:

  • Understand the SDGs and the important part legal empowerment plays in their success
  • Use diagnostic tools (including an Access to Justice assessment, GAP analysis, and Solution Tree) to obtain data around country-specific justice issues
  • Develop an advocacy strategy that pushes for the adoption of a national justice plan to address these country-specific justice issues and increase overall access to justice
  • Identify ways you can hold your government accountable to its international justice commitments
  • Learn from others civil society organizations and government reformers who are using the SDGs to achieve national justice reforms

Advocacy: Justice and the SDGs was developed by some of the foremost experts on issues of Access to Justice, including Namati, The International Legal Foundation, Open Society Foundations and American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative. 

Namati ILF OSF ABA

Some of this toolkit’s key highlights include:

CONTEXT

  • Become familiar with the SDGs and learn why legal empowerment and access to justice are essential to their overall success
  • Understand how you can use the SDGs to advocate for a national justice plan
  • Identify ways you can help hold your government accountable to its international justice commitments

TOOLS

  • Access to Justice Assessment: Identify your country’s key justice issues
  • Gap Analysis: Determine what your government is currently doing to address these issues
  • Solution Tree: Pinpoint solutions to tackle and resolve these issues

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

  • Case studies demonstrating successful advocacy efforts that use the SDGs to achieve national justice reforms
  • Case studies highlighting various strategies CSOs and governments have successfully used to promote legal empowerment and increase access to justice