Hakí supports local, community justice providers around the world. Working with local NGO partners from our global network we provide legal services to vulnerable populations and promote reforms that increase access to justice. We combine both non-profit and market-based approaches to bring law and rights to the people.  

Grassroots Justice Briefer

Grassroots Justice Concept Paper

Hakí has developed the first global for-profit grassroots justice platform that uses markets to increase access to legal services in countries where lawyers are rare and expensive. Hakí's Grassroots Justice Program builds on microfinance concepts to provide cost-effective legal assistance for pressing legal issues, including land registration and disputes, access to public services, and gender discrimination, using a community-centered model that promotes improved service to clients and entrepreneurship. 

Hakí designs, implements, and evaluates international development projects for a range of international donors, utilizing our network of local NGO partners to ensure projects are community-driven and build capacity toward sustainability. All of our work incorporates a rights-based approach to development that places critical analysis on the reform of laws and policies and mechanisms for their implementation to ensure the rights of vulnerable populations and communities. Important issues covered by our work include:

Eliminating Injustice for Women. Establish legal assistance and counseling centers and community-based paralegal networks that help women to combat gender violance and ensure inheritance rights;

Strengthening Land and Resource Rights. Increase land tenure security through social tenure domain model community-level land rights mapping; Strengthen property rights for natural resources to improve management, conservation and mitigate climate change;

Building Civil Society Capacity to Improve Governance. Support civil society monitoring of public expenditures and service delivery; Strengthen civil society advocacy for land and property rights on behalf of farmers, informal sector workers, and other vulnerable populations;

Access to Justice and Customary Justice Reform. Assess and design national legal aid systems; Train customary justice leaders to prevent human rights violations at customary courts;

Building the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict Environments. Provide mediation and community dispute resolution in post-conflict countries; Assist local civil society to conduct legal awareness campaigns that educate citizens on their rights and encourage greater civic engagement.

Our portfolio includes justice reform project evaluations, community land rights analysis, good governance, and institutional capacity-building for the United Nations, Norwegian government, U.S. Agency for International Development and other donors.

Hakí works with businesses to ensure their investments respect communities and human rights. Our global network of local NGOs and community organizations across developing countries gives us an unparalleled ability to work with local populations to ensure that investments respect human rights and community concerns. All investments by major companies and their suppliers are certified according to our proprietary Village Certified © standard.

Learn more about Village Certified

The Village Certified standard operationalizes the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights ("Ruggie Principles"), the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investments, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The standard means all certified investments occur with the free, prior and informed consent of communities and follow strict guidelines for assessing impacts on human rights and accounting for local land use rights and customary or communal ownership. We utilize innovative tools, such as social tenure domain software, to document and map community use, needs and areas of potential conflict. By working through local NGOs and with communities we ensure that business investments have local support and a greater chance to succeed.

Hakí uses online social networking to build movements and strengthen legal empowerment and advocacy efforts for the poor and marginalized around the world. Our constantly growing network has over 50 organizations across all continents. We foster shared learning and ‘South-South’ collaboration by collecting knowledge and resources of innovative practices and theoretical approaches. By directly collaborating with network partners, Hakí’s work has a multiplier effect across all countries and furthers our belief that true, lasting change comes from the bottom up.

Join Hakí

Hakí builds capacity at the local level through joint implementation of projects, training, developing model approaches and tools, and the sharing of information and good practices across our civil society members:

Annual Forum: Hakí members convene at an annual forum to discuss key topics, share best practices, provide training on project and financial management, craft unified advocacy plans, and enhance leadership.

Online Network: Momentum from the annual forum is continued online through the Hakí social networking and resource portal, which is a protected space for all members to discuss important issues and joint strategies and access programmatic and technical resources.

Capacity-building.  Workshops and trainings are provided to members at the annual forum and through the online portal to improve technical and management capacity. We also build the capacity of Hakí members through joint-implementation of projects.

Fundraising Support: We support enhanced fundraising infrastructure for Hakí Network members that use crowd-source project donations and issue-specific campaigns.

Hakí addresses the power dynamics inherent to issues of inequality. In every country, in partnership with Hakí Network members, we support national-level policy advocacy on behalf of local communities and disadvantaged populations, with a focus on land and property rights. Our advocacy efforts are strategic and based on analysis from our legal services work that identifies structural policy and rights issues that require higher level assistance. In many instances advocacy with the government is carried out as part of our technical assistance through donor-funded projects. 

Hakí Advocacy Forum

Hakí international experts also provide legal and advocacy training to our local NGO partners to improve their capacity to effectively advocate for change and use law as a tool toward reform of laws and their enforcement. Hakí has also developed an international network of public interest lawyers and legal clinics that provide legal resources to cases as needed.

Hakí conducts extensive empirical action-oriented research and comparative analysis on the intersection of rights and development. Our research is conducted through and for the benefit of our local network partners and feeds into project management. We build the capacity of local partners to conduct objective policy analysis and measure the impact of their work – to encourage continued support and replication of successful programs. We utilize a comprehensive results framework to capture the variety of legal empowerment contributions – from increased community legal awareness to paralegal provision of justice services to advocacy efforts leading to national policy reform. 

Global Land Index

Hakí publishes the annual Global Land Index. The Index measures the status of community and individual land and resource rights in all countries through a combination of legislative framework and policy analysis and on the ground implementation.