Support Research on Legal Aid and Paralegals in Lao PDR

Details

Mission and objectives

The main priority of the Regional Hub is to provide UNDP Country Offices in Asia and the Pacific with easy access to knowledge through high quality advisory services based on global applied research and UNDP lessons learnt.
The second priority is to build partnerships and promote regional capacity building initiatives, which allow UNDP, governments and other development partners to identify, create and share knowledge relevant to solving urgent development challenges.
The Bangkok Regional Hub mainly focuses on support to Democratic Governance, Environment & Energy, Crisis Prevention and Recovery, Poverty Reduction with an overarching effort on achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Context

UNDP is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our broad network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations build integrated, lasting solutions for people and the planet. UNDP’s Global Policy Network (GPN) is a network of global experts and practitioners, from local to global, anchored by the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support and the Crisis Bureau. The GPN is a cutting-edge provider of timely development advice, delivering support to Country Offices and programme countries in a coherent manner to connect countries to the world of knowledge, resources, and networks of best practices they need to achieve development breakthroughs.
The Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026: End Inequalities. End AIDS and the 2021 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: Ending Inequalities and Getting on Track to End AIDS by 2030 recognise that despite progress, AIDS remains an urgent global crisis. UNDP is one of the co-sponsors of the UN Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and as such, under the UNAIDS division of labor convenes support on law and policy reforms and co-convenes the work on the access of key HIV populations to services, with a strong focus on prevention.
The project will contribute to the reduction of human rights violations, inequalities, exclusion and stigma, and discrimination experienced by key populations. The proposed project aims to strengthen the evidence base, develop advocacy and capacity, and be used during convenings of regional and national dialogues that bring together national decisions makers and key stakeholders from the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government with civil society organizations, their allies, and other stakeholders.
The law underlies nearly every aspect of people’s lives, including health, employment, education, housing, and entrepreneurship. In many countries, unequal access to and discrimination in these sectors create real barriers to economic participation, especially for traditionally marginalized populations (men who have sex with men, transgender populations, people living with HIV, people who use drugs, youth, women, migrants, and others). Providing people access to justice enables them to tackle these inequalities, and to participate in legal processes that can also challenge stigma and discrimination and promote more inclusive laws and policies.
To that end, we are seeking to collaborate with Online Volunteers through this assignment, specifically by conducting desk research related to Legal Aid and Paralegals in Lao PDR.

Task description

We are looking for Online Volunteers who have experience in research with excellent writing skills. The task will include the following responsibilities:
– Discuss and determine parameters for the research
– Identify and gather sources
– Conduct research
– Fill out a table with the answers from the selected research
The average estimated workload is expected to include roughly reviewing 5-7 documents (these can include articles, studies etc.) over the course of the entire duration.
The Online Volunteer will be expected to use these documents to submit the following deliverables under the following areas:
1. General Information
2. Legal Aid
3. Paralegals
4. Community Paralegals
5. Mapping of Known Organizations