Projects

From MicroJustice

This page gives an overview of the current activities. The following projects have been defined that will run during 2008, around the basic Strategy of the Microjustice Initiative.

1. Launching the MJI. This project has been finished in 2007. Deliverables have been: a first version of a MJ Initiative website; an official launch before international experts from the rule of law and law and development community; a first version of a strategic plan; an academic background paper; a communication package; and establishment with contacts with key actors in the field.
2. Establishing the MJI. This project deals with setting up the network organization that supports the country programs and projects, the product development, coordinates fund-raising, and the development of Microjustice Norms and Processes.com. The goal for 2008 is to set up an organization that will be capable to initiate and support 20 Microjustice programs or projects in different countries. The following subprojects have been defined:
   1. Strategic Plan
   2. Networking/Relations
   3. Corporate communications and PR
   4. Organization Development
   5. Secretariat, legal, administrative
   6. Fundraising and Awareness
3. Microjustice Bolivia. This is where it actually happens during 2008. In the process of serving clients in accordance with the principles of Microjustice, experience is gathered about their needs, the best practices of delivering legal services that suit their needs, and about ways to reach economies of scale. This project (under the responsibility of International Legal Alliances and Microjusticia Bolivia) has the following main tasks and deliverables:
   1. Developing pilot products (see also 10)
   2. That will be available on a pilot website with norms and processes that are transparent to clients and facilitators (see also 7)
   3. Developing a pilot network of Microjustice Facilitators (see also 8)
   4. Developing a handbook that documents the process of setting up a Microjustice program, lists the experiences during the product development that will be a building block for a Microjustice Program template (see 6).
4. Microjustice Program in the Republics of former Yugoslavia. This is a successful cross border legal aid program that already applied many Microjustice guidelines, such as achieving economies of scale, and that will develop a next line of products and services adapted to the Microjustice approach during 2008.
5. Microjustice Programs in Other Countries In the course of 2008, other projects may be started. Several NGO's and even governments have expressed their interest in starting such projects.
6. Template Microjustice Program (Country Organization and projects). Based on the building blocks for a handbook (see under 3.4), a template for running programs and projects will become available. Besides the handbook, the template will contain a business plan for a microjustice program, as well as a template for a website.
7. MicrojusticeNormsandProcesses.com During 2008, the specifications of the web-interface will be developed. Moreover, a prototype of this website will be build. This will take place in close cooperation between Microjustice Bolivia, which runs a pilot website, and experts on objective criteria and online dispute resolution from Tilburg University.
8. Supporting Research and Base of the Pyramid Approach. This project is still in the process of being formed. At present, the following issues have been defined as urgent: the business model and distribution system for facilitators, the training of facilitators, and the pricing system that should be used, as well as the process of product development and innovation. Resources that will become available during 2008 include the students and researchers that form the Microjustice-BOP Lab Master Thesis Project. It is highly likely that more projects will follow, because the Benelux Base of the Pyramid Lab of Tilburg University, TISCO (Tilburg Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Civil Law and Conflict Resolution Systems) and specialists in Development Economy from this university see microjustce as a very promising research topic.
9. Measuring Access to Justice. This project will deliver tools to measure the performance of microjustice services and other Paths to Justice. The costs, quality of the procedure, and the quality of the outcome will be made transparent from the perspective of the user. In this way, microjustice creates the tools for its own evaluation. This project is ran by Tilburg University, and has a separate website
10. Microjustice Products Pilot products are in the process of being developed within the MJ Bolivia program, with support by experts in dispute resolution system design. For the following legal problems pilotproducts will be developed during 2008: Civil documentation, Registration property, Family issues (divorce, child support, heritage issues), and Consumers issues.
11. Political Awareness This project has not yet started. It will deal with issues such as awareness raising in respect to access to justice issues, implementing microjustice in post-conflict arrangements, integrating in political agenda’s, and pressing (institutions to change in order to improve access to justice