Tech-Enabled Justice for All

Barefoot Law emerged as one of the top picks of the FCF Scouting project conducted in 2024. This choice was based on the FCF strategy, which prioritizes key criteria such as Technology, Scalability, with strong focus on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As well as alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4, 13, and 16 “FCF WHAT”. Guided by Social Entrepreneurship (SE) as the “HOW” and FCF’s mission as the “WHY”. Particularly, BFL’s focus on SDG 16 underscores its role in promoting justice, access to legal resources, and stronger institutions, driving meaningful change in sub-Saharan Africa.

Vision

“Barefootlaw envisions real and virtual worlds in which every person readily has access to justice and the law, to empower themselves and their communities to thrive.”

WHY? 5.1 bn people lack meaningful access to justice

Because access to justice is foundational for creating peaceful communities where people can thrive, Barefoot Law (BFL) firmly believes that by making the law more readily available, people can use it to peacefully prevent and resolve problems, leading to better livelihoods for themselves and their communities. Over 5bn people lack meaningful access to justice, with structural inequalities dis-proportionately affecting the rural poor, women, children, and minorities. Everyday justice issues cost over 2% of GDP in most low-income countries. In Uganda, only 1% of the population has access to lawyers, leading to widespread issues with land, family, domestic violence, property, and employment.

HOW? Make legal services available to those farthest from available services.

BFL works in Africa to help people access legal services by leveraging digital technology to create new ways in which people can overcome barriers to access legal information (BFL Online & BFL Outreach) and services (BFL Boxes & BFL Online) to exercise their rights. They disseminate legal information and resources through their various online platforms (mobile phones, online platform and radio), offer free legal advice to help clients resolve issues and disputes, and take their services into communities through outreaches and mobile legal clinics.

They focus on the informal justice system, e.g. by training community leaders, so that they can connect their communities to BFL services. Although BFL has a tech-focus, it is a blended approach in which some services are offered in person as not everyone has access to technology (example: often men own the phones which makes it difficult for victims of domestic violence to get in touch via phone).

• Free legal advice: clients with specific issues can reach out through multiple channels (social channels, email, SMS) and a full-time team of trained lawyers would help them resolve issues free of charge. BL developed the BFL Integrated Operating System (BIOS) where all questions and inquiries could be aggregated to this technology platform so lawyers can respond to everything, seamlessly consulting each other on difficult problems. BIOS enabled lawyers to respond to messages collaboratively from different locations. More recently with all the data gathered they have introduced AI (Winnie). Winnie uses past legal questions and answers to make suggestions of answers to questions that the people we serve ask. Winnie also gives lawyers helpful hints and clues, and therefore acts as a bionic arm for lawyers, helping them work faster and them (the lawyers) helping her become more accurate.

• Outreaches and mobile clinics: The BFL Box is a movable recycled shipping container, powered by solar and redesigned to be fitted with an internet connection, screens, to allow community members to connect with lawyers for legal guidance and mediation)

WHAT? Tech-enabled easy legal information

BFL provides tech-enabled easy legal information and guidance to underserved communities in Uganda and is now expanding their reach into Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. As of 2024, over 1 million people have been served with their services. In 2023 their information was accessed over 9 million times and over 10,000 legal problems were handled. BFL’s goal is to serve 50 million people across Africa with legal information, particularly those farthest away from available services.    

Explaining the Barefoot Box