LSF LAUNCHES ITS NEW FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN 2022/26

 Friday, 20th August, 2021: Dar es Salaam

The Legal Services Facility (LSF), a non-governmental organization that facilitates the provision of legal aid services across the mainland and Zanzibar through paralegals and other legal aid providers today unveiled its 5-year strategic plan. The plan which will run from 2022-2026 comes right after the culmination of the organization’s second phase of operations which covered the period 2016-2020 but was extended for one more year and officially ends in December this year.

This new plan will chart the organization’s strategic direction and lay out its priorities in enabling access to justice in the country, as well as create a more conducive environment for women to enjoy their inherent rights and thus contribute to their own economic activities while simultaneously improving the general welfare of their families.

Essentially, this new plan aims to allow LSF to work even closer to the government and other institutions in the country in improving policies, laws and helping build a more effective atmosphere for beneficiaries of legal aid services, particularly women, to thrive.

In her remarks at the launch ceremony in Dar es Salaam, LSF’s CEO Lulu Ng’wanakilala said, “We are delighted to launch our new strategic plan for the next five years which is geared towards guiding our organizational mandate for the next phase as we seek to help even more ordinary Tanzanians access justice where they are;

“Our plan will contribute to the fulfillment of SDG 16 which aims at ensuring justice for all and SDG 5 which is intended to realize gender equality and improve the welfare of women and girls. Along with working to meet these global goals, the plan will also marry into our national 2020-2025 development agenda, good governance efforts and the National Plan of Action to End Violence Against Women and Children (NPA-VAWC), while fixating on poverty eradication and galvanizing the nation towards middle income economy status”.

Further, Ng’wanakilala highlighted the four primary areas of priority in the plan; “The four vital areas that define our work within this strategic plan are clearly laid out and they are: (i)Increase accessibility of quality legal aid services to the marginalized communities in particular women; (ii) Promoting legally empowered communities, in particular women.(iii) Enhancing conducive environment for sustainable access to justice; and (iv) Improving Institutional development and sustainability of the LSF and the legal aid sector”, she said.

Rounding off her remarks, Ng’wanakilala added that “We will continue to implement our Access to Justice Program across the mainland and Zanzibar while pushing ahead with our reach to sidelined groups everywhere helping them solve their access to justice challenges. These groups also include people living in urban areas where we will work harder to expand influence towards justice and ultimately facilitate the formulation of better policies and laws that will realize equality and inclusiveness without leaving anyone behind”.

Speaking at the event, the Registrar of Non-Governmental Organizations, Vickiness Mayao commended LSF on the new plan saying it provides solid evidence that the organization’s Access to Justice Program will continue, and that the Government through the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, the Elderly and Children benefits wholesomely from its results.

“LSF is a major partner of the Government and among NGOs that work very closely with communities in addressing everyday challenges especially those that deprive them of their rights, especially women, and in doing so LSF has been providing funds to other smaller organizations that we have registered and continue to oversee. I extend my warmest congratulations to LSF on this milestone trusting that this new strategic plan will expand opportunities for more Tanzanians to have better access to justice”, she said.

Mayao added that, “The Ministry of Health implements several programs including the National Plan of Action to End Violence Against Women and Children (NPA-VAWC) to which LSF and paralegal organizations in all districts make significant contributions. LSF has also designed a monitoring and reporting tool for this plan, and we will, in addition to all that, collaborate with them to work towards amendments to the Women and Gender Development Policy, 2000. which when complete will protect the rights and interests of women. We see vast opportunities for working in tandem to identify vital areas which under this strategic plan will yield profound outcomes”.

In conclusion Mayao paid tribute to the contribution of more than 200 partners that enabled the implementation of the outgoing strategic plan which was funded by DANIDA, DfID and the EU, and called on other stakeholders including government institutions, development partners, the private sector and NGOs to coalesce around LSF’s efforts and be prepared to extend financial or material support whenever needed.

LSF aims to add more funding partners to enable its Access to Justice Program to reach the grassroots at the ward and village levels where many ordinary citizens still need to benefit from free legal aid services.