This article is part of ASF’s 2024 annual report.
In Tanzania, ASF supported the East Africa Emerging Public Interest Advocates Programme (EAEPIAP) carried out by the Center for Strategic Litigation. The EAEPIAP is a training and mentorship programme for young legal professionals committed to social justice and human rights. The programme empowers young advocates through rigorous skills-based training and practical experience in using the law to advance social justice and protect the rights of marginalized communities.
The decision to support the EAEPIAP was informed by context. Across East Africa, civic space has been under attack. As it shrank, fewer and fewer civil society organizations have been open to taking on the task of challenging growing human rights violations by state and non-state actors. The decline in funding for civil society organizations has also brought about a decline in resources available to pursue often draining and costly legal remedies for such violations. As a result, and because young lawyers are increasingly pulled into highly rewarding, low-risk careers in private law, few lawyers remain involved in public interest litigation. This should alarm us as it threatens the continuation of public interest lawyering, most prominent lawyers having retired or chosen other more profitable and easier careers.
This programme contributes to upskilling some of the most promising young human rights lawyers in East Africa. This year, the programme beneficiaries were 14 fellows, from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan. The programme is a year-long training, which has three phases: a one-month intensive residential training in which residency combines lectures, community engagements and practical learning through moot courts; a practicum of four and a half months of practical work in partner organizations under the tutelage of a dedicated mentor, where fellows are taught rigorous research, drafting and community engagement; and a last training seminar where fellows, trainers and mentors convene in residence for practical training in public interest litigation advocacy, evaluation and discussions on the way forward.
In 2024, the fellows worked on a broad range of issues, ranging from political and civil rights to reproductive and women’s rights, land rights of indigenous populations in the context of large-scale extractive projects, child rights and prisoner’s rights.
The final outcome of the training was for every fellow to file a public interest litigation suit. Numerous cases have already been filed before relevant domestic and regional courts. ASF supported the final training seminar, which took place the last week of February, and which aimed at providing final assessments on the fellows’ public interest litigation cases before their filing. The final seminar also held advocacy and resource mobilizations trainings, specific to public interest litigators.
