Tanzania: Quality Legal Aid Services for Vulnerable Groups in Sight

By Daily News Reporter in Dodoma

LEGAL Services Facility (LSF) has expressed its commitment to promoting performance-based, service delivery oriented and citizen-centred legal services.

LFS Chief Executive Officer Lulu Ng'wanakilala insisted on the consolidation of accountable, participatory and an inclusive legal empowerment system in the country.

Speaking yesterday during a LSF grantees review workshop, Ms Ng'wanakilala said the workshop was offering the grantees and partners a platform for sharing information on the results of the programmes and discuss technically future prospects.

She said LSF would keep striving to increase access to justice for all in particular for women's empowerment through a legal empowerment approach and provide legal aid and paralegal services in Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.

She insisted on their commitment to promoting human rights for all, with emphasis on poor women, girls and other vulnerable groups.

"We enhance the availability, affordability, accessibility and acceptability of quality legal aid services through paralegals and other legal aid providers," she insisted.

Ms Ng'wanakilala said they would work closely with the government at all levels, development partners and organisations in the provision of legal aid and other likeminded stakeholders.

The workshop gathered together about 20 participants, including organisations' executive directors, programme coordinators, communications, monitoring and evaluation officers and finance offices from all regions. "The goal was to see how best we can move forward."

She said they wanted to understand how paralegals performed and what type of support was useful to their operations and discuss a way forward that would cater for the 2022-2026 LSF Strategic Plan.

For her part, LSF Board Chairperson Beng'i Issa insisted that the grantees of the ending programme must share results, experiences, lessons and recommendations as this did not mark the end of promoting access to justice in the country.

She said administration of justice was a collective responsibility that all stakeholders need to engage in for smooth implementation.