Adapting to new ways of working: where to next for law and justice assistance?

Thursday 26 November 2020

Despite the persistence of injustice around the world, justice programming has experienced a decline in funding from many traditional donors, including Australia. This has triggered a search for new ways of financing justice support. In addition, the long-standing recognition of the importance of locally-led justice programs has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting a significant shift to localisation of programming and remote management. In this session we discuss adaptations to new ways of working that these shifts require. 

Speakers:

• Pilar Domingo, Overseas Development Institute: Leveraging sector financing in support of justice

• Erin Anderson, Australia Anti-Trafficking Program: Localising politically smart justice programming in the context of COVID

Webinar recording available here

New strategies for combating violence against women

Thursday 19 November 2020

Australia, like many other donor countries, has made significant investments in combating violence against women through justice programming. While there are a range of common approaches supported to address this challenge, its global prevalence and persistence requires that our strategies are continually improved and diversified. This session will present novel approaches to addressing violence against women in the Asia-Pacific and discuss how new practices might best be shared. 

Speakers:

• Fiona Hukula, PNG National Research Institute: Beyond empowerment: working with perpetrators and on sorcery-related violence in PNG

• Hao Yang, The Asia Foundation China: Combating domestic violence and sexual harassment in China’s workplaces

  • Presentation

• Megan Hirst , International Human Rights Lawyer Doughty Street Chambers: Beyond VAW: Violence against children in Timor-Leste

Webinar recording available here

Leveraging  technology for improved justice outcomes

Tuesday 17 November 2020

Technological innovation has taken on even greater salience in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic pushing programs to gather data, engage justice seekers and providers, and deliver results at a distance. While technology can indeed offer an important platform for ensuring more people-centred justice, it can also be a costly and unsustainable investment that does not connect to local realities. This keynote presentation by global justice innovator, Sam Muller, talked about the need for a transformation in our thinking about how best to meet people’s justice needs. It was followed by a panel discussion providing two ‘windows into practice’ of how technological innovation is being used to improve access to justice in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Keynote speaker: 

• Dr Sam Muller, CEO, The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL)

• Key Note Address

Discussants:

• The Honourable Sir Albert Palmer, Chief Justice of the Solomon Islands

  • Solomon Islands Justice Program Information

• Cate Sumner, Law and Development Partners

Webinar recording available here

The impact of evaluations on law and justice learning and practice

Thursday October 1 2020

This event, moderated by Gordon Peake, explored the headline findings of two reviews-Indonesia and Vanuatu- and looked at what they tell us about what works (and what does not) in law and justice assistance, as well as how these reviews are contributing to learning, program practice and the direction of Australian law and justice assistance.

Speakers:

• Paul Nichols, Team Leader, Review Team for the Vanuatu Law and Justice Program

  • Presentation

• Binziad Kadafi, Indonesia Justice Expert, Review Team for the Australia-Indonesia Justice Partnership

  • Presentation

Discussant:

• Clare Manuel, Justice Expert, Review Team for the Solomon Islands Justice Program

Webinar recording available here

Law & Justice: COVID19 and recovery

Thursday 23 July 2020

In this Workshop we talk with Maaike de Langen from Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies in New York about the most pressing priorities that the public health emergency poses for justice leaders and the role justice plays in the economic crisis and recovery and the implications for law and justice practice.

Webinar recording available here

Resources available here

Measuring and Influencing at a Distance: Thinking & working politically in an environment shaped by COVID-19

Wednesday 3 June 2020

This event looked at how researchers, M&E staff, practitioners and local partners are collecting data, researching and ‘thinking and working politically’ in an environment shaped by COVID-19. It explored the challenges, local impacts and learnings from working at a distance during the COVID19 pandemic.

Webinar recording available here

Presentations:

• A Monitoring and Evaluation, a practitioner’s experience from the Pacific and Solomon Islands - Alan Mua Illingworth, Solomon Islands DFAT Justice Program

• Monitoring for Adaptive Management: Managing MERL during a COVID-19 lockdown - Carolyn O’Donnell, Director for Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL), The Asia Foundation Nepal

• M&E in a time of COVID-19 - Chris Roche, Professor of Development Practice at La Trobe University and Director of the Institute for Human Security and Social Change

• The challenges of thinking and working politically at a distance: Experience from Myanmar - Veronica Taylor, Professor of Law and Regulation at the Australian National University.