The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HIIL) and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) are delighted to announce a new collaboration for complementary LAND-at-scale activities in Iraq. Activities focus on justice innovation and support: by scouting, vetting, selecting and supporting promising local and existing justice initiatives in Northern Iraq, HIIL aims to strengthen the localization of justice solutions for Iraqi people.

In a time-frame of 15 months, HIIL will identify promising existing initiatives addressing HLP rights problems to receive support, financial and technical, to help them scale their work. Growth implementation and financing plans will be produced and fundraising pitches prepared, and a sharing event organized. The work will be done in close synergy with existing LAND-at-scale activities in Iraq with UN-Habitat.

Recently UN-Habitat [Launching the LAND-at-scale project in Iraq | Land Portal], the Netherlands Embassy in Baghdad and RVO signed an agreement for work focusing on national policy reform processes. Over the coming three years, this project will work to initiate policy dialogue on the land legal framework reform and work to secure tenure rights for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and returnees in Iraq. These UN-Habitat activities are now supported by a component focusing explicitly on justice innovation and local solutions in the same areas in Iraq. For innovation to scale, the regulatory and legislative framework in Iraq also needs to be conducive. The collaboration with UN-Habitat aims to ensure that the space for justice innovation at the national level can be created as well.

HIIL has years of experience in establishing Justice Innovation Labs, which take a systematic, collaborative and experimental approach to justice. The process includes combining evidence-based and stakeholder-driven approaches. In Syria, for example, HIIL has supported thirteen small scale initiatives that have contributed to reducing violence against women and facilitating access to personal documentations for Syrians. In addition, HIIL has been running the justice accelerator programme which provides very useful experience for the work in Iraq. Through its Justice Accelerator programme, HIIL scouts and trains innovators who want to ensure people can find solutions to their justice problems at their doorstep. HIIL will apply a similar approach to Housing, Land and Property (HLP) rights challenges in Iraq.

LAND-at-scale is funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and managed by the Netherlands Enterprise and Development Agency (RVO). The project in Iraq is supported with 304.564 Euros. To stay updated on this LAND-at-scale project and others, please sign up(link is external) for our quarterly newsletter.