About Us                                     

Tanzania Paralegals Network (TAPANET) is an umbrella organization, which was established and registered in 2010. The main objectives of TAPANET is to build mutual understanding, cooperation and coordination among paralegals, to strive for unified and quality training of paralegals and to have a common voice on issues relating to development of paralegals in Tanzania mainland. Generally, TAPANET has been involved in improving coordination, collaboration and communication among paralegals in Tanzania mainland, also to ensure accessibility of legal aid services to the vulnerable people, especially women and children in Tanzania mainland through existing paralegals. Since its establishment in 2010, TAPANET has grown to have one hundred and seventy-two (172) members up to date. These members are Paralegal organizations (RMOs) and districts Paralegal organizations from Tanzania Mainland.

Tanzania Paralegals Network is voluntary and umbrella organization comprising Civil Society Organizations that provide paralegal services to the poor and to the marginalized communities across Tanzania. The organization was registered as accompany without shares limited by guarantee in 2010. It is a membership network comprising Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community–Based Organizations (CBOs), and other institutions providing paralegal services in Tanzania. To date the network has a membership base of 107 paralegal organizations from across Tanzania.

Overall Goal

Poor and marginalized communities in Tanzania have equitable access to timely justice

Strategic Objectives

To realize the fore mentioned goal, TAPANET will strive to accomplish the following strategic objectives:

1. Paralegals and paralegal organizations have relevant technical skills and deliver to the expectations of the poor and marginalized communities and stakeholders;
2. Paralegals are institutionally and legally recognized in Tanzanian legal regime and changes in policies, laws and practices made for efficient and effective delivery of paralegal services;
3. Reliable and timely information on legal and human right that is supportive of the work of paralegals is gathered, published, documented and widely disseminated;
4. TAPANET is organizationally strong, effective and sustainable, delivering to the expectations of its members and key

TAPANET will make use of diverse strategies to accomplish its strategic objectives .Some of the ways and means of getting its work done will include but not be limited to the following:

• Design and provide innovative, cost effective and demand- driven capacity building interventions with paralegals and paralegal organizations;
• Capitalize upon Information and Communications Technology (ICT) enhance knowledge management regarding access to justice and human rights;
• Capture ,document, and popularize success stories and best practices of paralegals and paralegal organizations across Tanzania;
• Establish and strengthen good relation with gatekeepers and strategic targets in the executive ,judiciary and legislative arms of the state;

• Establish and cultivate good working relations with mass media

• Under take demand driven and targeted action research;

• Strengthen good working relations with the Law Reform Commission of Tanzania and the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance
• Devise, operationalize and regularly update standard organization’s policies and procedures

• Establish and operationalize user-friendly performance management and Monitoring and Evaluation systems;
• Establish and strengthen strategic partnership with likeminded organizations locally and internationally

• Tape in to available voluntary services locally and internationally for value addition to institutional development

Vision and Mission statements of TAPANET Vision

Tanzanian society with equitable and timely access to justice

Mission

TAPANET is an umbrella organization established to enhance the best practice and capacity of Paralegals for quality legal aid services in Tanzania.

Core Values

TAPANET will cherish and be guided by the following set of core values:

• Accountability
• Transparency
• Integrity and honesty
• Voluntarism
• Professionalism
• Gender sensitivity
• Equal partnership for meaningful change processes

STRATEGIC ISSUES, FOCUS AND DIRECTION

1. Capacity strengthening of paralegals

Provision of quality legal aid services by paralegals depends to a great extent on the quality of capacity strengthening provided to paralegals. As previously noted, a good number of paralegals have been trained using different curricula. Half-cooked paralegals provide shoddy legal aid services to the indigent. Using a newly prepared Paralegal Manual, paralegal organizations will make deliberate effort to train Andre-train paralegals in a bid to sharpen their skills so that standard paralegal services are provided across the country.

Deliberate efforts shall be made to facilitate social organization and organizational capacity strengthening of paralegal organizations. This will be given due consideration in order to ensure that delivery of quality legal aid services by paralegals is sustainable. TAPANET will coordinate member paralegal organizations to come up with and share innovative ways and means to motivate and sustain the work of paralegals at grassroots level across Tanzania.

2. Advocacy for legal literacy, reform and human rights

TAPANET will undertake advocacy in a bid to raise legal and human rights awareness of the general public by making use of diverse ways and means. The strategies employed will entail use of theatre arts, radio and television program Community radio program will be given special attention due to cost effectiveness and potential to educate communities around legal issues pertaining to specific geographical areas. For instance, in areas characterized with land conflicts radio program will be tailored to ensure that target communities get relevant legal and human rights education on land and land rights governance.

The network will step up efforts to advocate for institutionalization and legal recognition of paralegals in Tanzania. Furthermore, TAPANET will from time to time convene meetings to identify issues around policies, laws and practices that need to reform in a bid to create better and facilitative work environment for effectiveness of paralegal services. The network will devise, operationalize and evaluate advocacy strategies to ensure that advocacy remains cost effective and rewarding for supportive policy and legal environment for the work of paralegals in Tanzania.

3. Research, Publication and Documentation

TAPANET will undertake strategic action research with a view to gathering facts and evidence to inform advocacy initiatives. The network members will convene periodically, determine priority research agenda and carry out research. There search findings will widely and strategically disseminated with a view to reaching and influencing specific targets for desired policies, laws and practice changes. To that end, the network will produce policy briefs and fact sheets and use them for advocacy.

Helpful legal and human rights materials emanating from research and relevant education materials will be published and widely disseminated thereby enhancing the capacity of paralegals and the general public on legal and human rights issues. The network will design and maintain resourceful website for wide information dissemination and sharing. In addition, a one-stop and user-friendly information center will be established and stocked with up-to-date information on access to justice and human rights.

4. Organizational development and sustainability

TAPANET intends to coordinate and unite its members in a bid to be a very powerful force for making a difference in legal and human rights landscape in Tanzania. Deliberate effort will be made to identify and recruit paralegal and ensure strong solidarity. To achieve this, the network will invest in timely information sharing and learning from members for adaptive organizational management and development. Mistakes of trying or gravitating toward being just like another NGO, a common networks killing root cause will be avoided.

As a learning network, TAPANET will periodically undertake action oriented organizational capacity assessment in a bid to improve its image, performance and effectiveness in coordinating impact making paralegal working Tanzania.

The network will hire a lean but competent staff, convene meetings and organize work shop to strengthen its overall performance for quality program delivery and sustainability. Performance management will be given attention by establishing and operational zing user-friendly monitoring and evaluation system. The Secretariat of the network will build and apply resource mobilization skills to ensure that TAPANET is resilient and sustainable in fulfilling its mandate

3.  GOAL AND STRAEGIC OBJECTIVES, STRATEGIES AND KEY ACTIVITIES

• Overall Goal

Poor and marginalized communities in Tanzania have access to timely justice their human rights are respected

• Strategic Objectives

To realize the stated goal, TAPANET seeks to accomplish the following strategic objectives:

1. Paralegals and paralegal organizations have relevant technical skills and deliver to the expectations of the poor and marginalized communities and stakeholders;
2. Paralegals are institutionally and legally recognized in Tanzanian legal regime; and changes in policies, laws  and practices made for efficient and effective delivery of paralegal services;
3. Reliable and timely information on legal and human rights that is supportive of the work of paralegals is gathered, published, documented and widely disseminated;
4. TAPANET is organizationally strong, effective and sustainable, delivering to the expectations of its members and key

Main strategies

TAPANET will make use of diverse strategies to accomplish its strategic objectives. Some of the ways and means of getting its work done will include but not be limited to the following:

Strategies for strategic aim one

• Design and provide innovative, cost effective and demand-driven capacity building interventions with paralegals and paralegal organizations;
• Capitalize upon Information and Communications Technology (ICT) enhance knowledge management regarding access to justice and human rights;
• Capture, document, and popularize success stories and best practices of paralegals and paralegal organizations across Tanzania;

Strategies for strategic aim two

• Identify and capitalize upon emerging influencing opportunities locally and internationally;

• Establish and strengthen good relation with gate keepers and strategic targets in the executive, judiciary and legislative arms of the state;
• Establish and cultivate good working relations with mass media

Strategies for strategic aim three

• Undertake demand driven and targeted action research;

• Establish and strengthen strategic partnership with research and higher learning institutions for quality research results and knowledge is semi nation
• Prepare and disseminate popular versions of research findings for wider dissemination

• Strengthen good working relations with the Law Reform Commission of Tanzania and the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance

Strategies for strategic aim four

• Devise, operationalize and regularly update standard organization ’s policies and procedures

• Establish and operationalize user-friendly performance management and Monitoring and Evaluation systems;

• Establish and strengthen strategic partnership with likeminded organizations locally and internationally

• Devise and operationalize resource winning and stewardship strategy for institutional sustainability and program delivery
• Tape into available voluntary services locally and internationally for value addition to institutional development

Key activities for strategic objective one: Capacity strengthening

• Conduct action-oriented annual consultative performance reviews of paralegal work and document success stories and best practices;
• Carry out capacity building needs assessment for paralegals and paralegal organizations;

• Conduct TOT training on standard legal aid provision for paralegals;

• Develop, publish and disseminate information and reference materials for legal aid provision; and

• Conduct demand driven capacity building seminars and workshops for paralegal organizations

• Provide paralegal organizations with demand driven coaching support on agreed up on priority areas of technical gaps

• Provide hotline technical support to paralegals for quality and effective paralegal services

• Administer a Paralegal of the year Award recognize best performances and practices

Key activities for strategic objective two: Advocacy

• Prepare and air weekly community radio programs on selected legal and human rights issues

• Conduct fact finding missions on human rights violation and widely disseminate the findings

• Prepare quarterly press releases and conduct press conferences to strategic legal and human rights issues

• Conduct annual consultative meetings to draw up priority advocacy issues and advocacy plans

• Conduct advocacy meetings and dialogues with policy and law maker son recognition paralegals

• Subscribe and attend networking meetings locally and internationally

• Conduct advocacy meetings with strategic standing parliamentary meetings

• Document and disseminate important policy laws and practice changes made

• Document and regularly update a database of TAPANET members

Key activities for strategic objective three: Research

• Conduct annual consultative meeting to review and agree on priority research agenda

• Conduct two researches on priority advocacy issues

• Conduct stakeholder consultative and information dissemination sessions

• Publish research reports, policy briefs and fact sheets

• Prepare , publish and disseminate information and education materials on legal and human rights

• Prepare and update a Directory of Paralegal Organizations

• Design and regularly update TAPANET website;

Key activities for strategicobjective4: Organization Development

• Conduct Annual General Meeting as per schedule

• Conduct Quarterly Board Meetings as per schedule

• Conduct Annual Retreats for the Board and Secretariat

• Conduct monthly management meets of the Secretariat

• Conduct action oriented Organizational Capacity Assessment of TAPANET

• Conduct Annual Program review meetings

• Prepare quality grant applications and submit to potential donors for funding

• Prepare and implement Monitoring and Evaluation plans and prepare progress reports

• Procure and maintain material resources for smooth functioning of the Secretariat
• Conduct Mid-term and end of strategy evaluation
• Conduct annual audit of books of accounts

Figure1:Organogram of TAPANET

Annex1: Logical Frame work Matrix: TAPANET three-year strategic Plan 2015-2017

TAPANET SECRETARIAT

LIST OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS