• Address: 1616 P St. NW, Suite 101, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA

NAMATI

NAMATI - INNOVATIONS IN LEGAL EMPOWERMENT

2013

Member since

Working towards these commitments

Respect, protect and strengthen the land rights of women and men living in poverty, ensuring that no one is deprived of the use and control of the land on which their well-being and human dignity depend, including through eviction, expulsion or exclusion, and with compulsory changes to tenure undertaken only in line with international law and standards on human rights.
1

Secure Tenure Rights

Ensure equitable land distribution and public investment that supports small-scale farming systems, including through redistributive agrarian reforms that counter excessive land concentration, provide for secure and equitable use and control of land, and allocate appropriate land to landless rural producers and urban residents, whilst supporting smallholders as investors and producers, such as through cooperative and partnership business models.
2

Strong Small-Scale Farming Systems

Recognize and protect the diverse tenure and production systems upon which people’s livelihoods depend, including the communal and customary tenure systems of smallholders, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, fisher folks, and holders of overlapping, shifting and periodic rights to land and other natural resources, even when these are not recognized by law, and whilst also acknowledging that the well-being of resource-users may be affected by changes beyond the boundaries of the land to which they have tenure rights.
3

Diverse Tenure Systems

Ensure gender justice in relation to land, taking all necessary measures to pursue both de jure and de facto equality, enhancing the ability of women to defend their land rights and take equal part in decision-making, and ensuring that control over land and the benefits that are derived thereof are equal between women and men, including the right to inherit and bequeath tenure rights.
4

Equal land rights for women

Respect and protect the inherent land and territorial rights of indigenous peoples, as set out in ILO Convention 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including by recognizing that respect for indigenous knowledge and cultures contributes to sustainable and equitable development and proper management of the environment".
5

Secure territorial rights for Indigenous Peoples

Ensure that processes of decision-making over land are inclusive, so that policies, laws, procedures and decisions concerning land adequately reflect the rights, needs and aspirations of individuals and communities who will be affected by them. This requires the empowerment of those who otherwise would face limitations in representing their interests, particularly through support to land users' and other civil society organizations that are best able to inform, mobilize and legitimately represent marginalized land users, and their participation in multi-stakeholder platforms for policy dialogue.
7

Inclusive decision-making

Respect and protect the civil and political rights of human rights defenders working on land issues, combat the stigmatization and criminalisation of peaceful protest and land rights activism, and end impunity for human rights violations, including harassment, threats, violence and political imprisonment
10

Protected land rights defenders

Mission

Namati is a Sanskrit word meaning to bow and to shape something into a curve, evoking the ideas of reverence and transformation. An international organization dedicated to advancing the field of legal empowerment and to strengthening people's capacity to exercise and defend their rights in practical ways, Namati actively cultivates a global community of legal empowerment practitioners and pursues and evaluates innovative legal empowerment programs. It addresses issues of pressing global significance, including: community land protection, increased access to justice, environmental justice, and accountability of essential services.
Namati's vision is of a world in which all people are able to exercise their rights and take part in the process of governing, resulting in more empowered communities and more responsive governments, and the restoration of human dignity.

Objectives

To implement innovative legal empowerment interventions in partnership with civil society organizations and governments. Each intervention addresses an issue of pressing global significance and applies legal empowerment strategies in an area in which the approach is not yet well proven.

Constituencies

Namati’s constituencies are global NGOs, IGOs, global and national-level policy makers, national governments, national NGOs and CSOs, grassroots organizations and community members.

  • Address: 1616 P St. NW, Suite 101, Washington, D.C. 20036 USA