TANZANIA: Experts call for coordination in legal service delivery

Written by DAILY NEWS Reporter

A LECTURER and prominent political analyst  underlined coordination and collaboration among legal aid providers as crucial elements in the current government and stakeholders’ efforts to improve legal services delivery in the country.

Dr Benson Bana of the University of Dar es Salaam said this at the opening of a special workshop for key stakeholders in the legal sector--legal aid organizations, prisons, judiciary and social welfare department of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

Organized by the Legal Services Facility (LSF), the forum seeks to enhance coordination and collaboration among respective stakeholders with the view to ensure public access to justice and improved legal services in Tanzania. 

  

Dr Bana said improvement of legal service delivery and realization of justice would be impossible if activities of key stakeholders were not well-coordinated.“In a situation where you have a critical mass of institutions doing similar activities for shared strategic goals and objectives the need for coordination and collaboration becomes indispensable,” he said. 

  

He said coordination and collaboration amongst state and non-actors involved in legal aid provision would help improve effectiveness in the dispensation of justice. “Coordination and collaboration also enhances efficient use of available resources, minimizes duplication of activities, minimizes wastage of resources and enables legal aid providers to create appropriate networks for exchanging of knowledge and experience on the quality of services as well as sharing of best practices in their provision of legal aid services to different users,” he noted. 

  

He said coordination and interdependence assist legal aid providers to deliver desired results, noting that “the two elements cannot be separated…the preeminent principle of management is coordination and the essence of coordination is interdependence.” He said in a situation of interdependence, the need for coordinated action is inescapable if the Legal Service Facility (LSF), judiciary, prison, police, legal aid organizations and other stakeholders, want to accomplish their strategic objectives of ensuring public access to justice at all levels. 

  

“We have to find different devices for achieving coordination across the justice sector and among and between different legal aid providers at national (macro) and grassroots (micro) levels,” he observed. Ms Scholastica Jullu, LSF Programme Officer (legal sector), said the workshop intends to initiate coordination, communication and information sharing amongst legal aid stakeholders. “We aspire to forge a working relation amongst legal aid stakeholders that will effectively bring tangible results towards increasing coverage and quality legal aid provision in the country,” 

  

Mr John Nyoka, an expert in prison affairs, said the realization of justice for all Tanzanians would be difficult if key stakeholders—police, prisons department, judiciary, social welfare department, would work in isolation.He urged that the government, LSF and other stakeholders to step up effective mechanisms for coordinating operations of legal aid providers. 

  

Mr Kaleb Lameck Gamaya, Programme Director at a legal aid organization, known as “NOLA”, said “Legal aid stakeholders must work together…in a coordinated manner, otherwise we will not achieve what we aspire. In other words, our dreams of ensuring that every Tanzanian has access to justice would not be realized.” 

Source: Daily News (02/11/2012): http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/local-news/11124-experts-call-for-coordination-in-legal-service-delivery