[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]2022 was an amazing year, during which ACA’s internal investments increasingly paid off in terms of concrete results for communities and civil society partners across West Africa. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]At ACA, we help West African communities that are threatened by the destructive impacts of extractives-led development take control of their own development and use law and science to fight off threats to their chosen future. We are a laboratory for community-driven development and legal action, an incubator that helps our partners acquire the capacities to champion the interests of threatened communities, and a launch pad for new institutions that train and encourage lawyers, scientists, and development professionals to act in the interest of communities. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]In 2022, we made progress on all these fronts, and threatened communities are benefiting as a result. [/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]First, as always, we experimented and perfected innovative legal and community-driven development (CDD) tools to help communities seek remedies for abuses by powerful economic actors and build resilience to their impacts and attacks: [/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]
- We piloted a CDD intervention for women who lost their livelihoods to a sprawling diamond mine in Koidu, Sierra Leone. The project has brought the women such hope that they are now the unshakable core of our legal strategy as well.
- We helped Ghanaian citizens induce the suspension of a polluting mining company’s operating permit and the filling of abandoned mining pits through Citizens Committee Network (CiCoNet), a community-government interface group that we sponsored and trained to advocate on their communities’ behalf.
- Our new case in Liberia, on behalf of villages whose land was stolen by the giant Salala Rubber Plantation, survived a Motion to Dismiss and seems headed to trial. If we win, the case will invalidate a massive, country-wide land grab that the Liberian state perpetrated against indigenous communities in 1956 and establish that compensation is due when indigenous land is given to foreign companies.
- We crafted a strategy to use the French courts to enforce the judgment of the ECOWAS Court of Justice in the Zogota massacre case by seizing Guinean state assets. A case will be filed in the coming months to strike a blow against international crimes and deter corrupt leaders from stashing ill-gotten wealth.
- ACA’s Science Adviser coordinated three citizen-science studies using ACA’s methodology for community-driven scientific analysis. The results will be used in litigation and to design additional community-led interventions to improve their living environment.
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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]Second, we promoted partners’ capacity to use our most effective techniques, especially through the Public Interest Lawyering Initiative for West Africa (PILIWA): [/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]
- With our coaching, our partner in Niger adapted a tool called compulsoire from a PILIWA member in Côte d’Ivoire. This led to the first successful legal action in Niger to compel pre-litigation disclosure of information, unblocking a major barrier to civil justice.
- We launched a webinar series on innovations for justice in West African legal systems.
- ACA began holding M&E and strategic planning seminars for key ACA partners.
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And third, we are taking huge steps forward in building a foundation of public interest activists and organizers across West Africa through training institutions and programs:
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- ACA is scaling up from 7 to 107 CDD communities in Ghana, in partnership with local government authorities! By working with local District Assemblies, we will build a wide-reaching and lasting base of CDD-trained government authorities and civil society partners.
- ACA’s Science Adviser is working with universities across West Africa and will begin training young scientists in our community-driven methodology in 2023.
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.6.6″ _module_preset=”default”]Given all of these advances, 2023 is going to be a huge year. We’ll begin the massive scale-up of our CDD work in Ghana and launch a legal clinic in Nigeria. We’ll go to trial on cases in Ghana and Liberia, file transnational litigation arising out of Guinea and Nigeria in France and Italy, take a case on appeal in Sierra Leone, and launch litigation in Côte d’Ivoire and Niger. Our citizen-science studies in Senegal and Sierra Leone will be used for advocacy and, potentially, litigation.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.6.6″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]
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