Legal Empowerment Approach to Natural Resource Governance in Latin America

This project supports three legal empowerment organizations across Latin America to implement action research projects addressing key natural resource governance challenges in the region. The project’s aim is to understand how innovative legal empowerment strategies can help communities know use and shape the law to advance reforms in natural resource governance and support the empowerment of women and marginalized groups. This is done through actions that increase the participation of women and marginalized groups to drive legislative and policy reform. In supporting action research projects Namati Inc. builds the capacity of partner organizations to lead collective action and advocacy in the region. Practical strategies generated in this project are shared broadly for use by other civil society organizations. These outcomes directly contribute to poverty reduction reduced pollution and reduced health impacts on populations allowing for broader meaningful participation in the economy.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) Generation and communication of analysis and evidence on legal empowerment solutions for natural resource governance climate change and women's rights; (2) Local leadership on learning and knowledge-sharing among legal empowerment organizations both within and across regions; and (3) Understanding and uptake of evidence produced by locally-driven action research on natural resource governance climate change and women's rights by policymakers in low- and middle-income countries.