REEEP is pleased to announce our new partnership with Advocates for International Development (A4ID), a global charity which works with the legal and development sectors to combat poverty and drive progress towards realising the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As legal advice can be prohibitively expensive for many in the developing world, A4ID seeks to eliminate this financial barrier and make high quality legal advice accessible for organisations working towards sustainable development. They do this by ‘’partnering with leading law firms, barristers, in-house lawyers and legal academics who are keen to offer their skills free of charge, to support development organisations and developing country governments in need of legal assistance.’’
A4ID provides a pro bono broker service, which brings together an extensive network of over 50,000 lawyers working across the world with their Development Partners to collaborate on specific projects. A4ID’s Development Partners can request free legal advice regarding any legal area – from employment law and tax to data protection, intellectual property rights and legal research – and A4ID will help the organisation to scope their project. A4ID will then match the project with one of their Legal Partners, who have the necessary expertise, and the lawyers will offer their services at no cost to the organisation.
Furthermore, A4ID offers legal training for NGOs, social enterprises and development organisations on a range of topics, from Data Protection to Sanctions Risks and Bribery & Corruption; a legal health check, where a team of lawyers assess the ‘legal health’ of an organisation to identify any legal risks that need to be addressed; and a Global Development Legal Clinic for organisations to sit down face-to-face with a bespoke team of lawyers and receive immediate answers to their legal questions.
In addition to their pro bono legal services, they also run an annual Law and Development Training Programme for both the legal and development sectors. The programme covers topics spanning the different SDGs to provide lawyers and development professionals with an in-depth understanding of the latest issues at the nexus of law and sustainable development, and how these relate to their everyday work.
With just 10 years left to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A4ID works to ensure the law is effectively harnessed to help reduce poverty, promote equality and protect the environment. They will soon launch A Legal Guide to the Sustainable Development Goals, a unique resource that provides a foundational analysis of the role the law can and should play in the achievement of the SDGs.
A4ID’s Development Partners are an international group of more than 800 non-governmental organisations, social enterprises, community-based organisations, UN agencies, international development organisations such as the World Bank, developing country governments, and developing country Bar Associations and Law Societies, all working towards reaching the SDGs set out by the UN.
Learn more about A4ID and how you too can become one of their Development Partners on their website: http://www.a4id.org/get-involved/becoming-a-development-partner/
