Zanzibar Legal Services Centre (ZLSC) 2013-2017

The organisation has evolved during the five years of implementation of its Strategic Plan and has become one of Zanzibar's most prominent civil society organisations. It is often put forward as a good example of a stable organisation on Zanzibar (which generally has a weak civil society which operates in a very politicized environment). The Centre has also played a role in building the capacity of other civil society organisations (CSOs) working on human rights, access to justice and the rights of vulnerable groups.  The ZLSC has been particularly effective when it comes to building and maintaining networks with civil society, government and national institutions and has become a valued and trusted partner of government in some areas while still managing to maintain its independence. ZLSC has managed to stay neutral and navigate in the increasingly difficult landscape of human rights on the islands. The nullification of the elections in October 2015 and the subsequent re-elections in March 2016 has further politically divided the islands. The in-practise abandonment of the Government of National Unity, and the positive impact it had to significantly reduce human rights abuses, is putting Zanzibar to the test. Even if few abuses of human rights are reported to ZLSC there is a widespread understanding that the abuses has increased.  Access to justice is still an area of concern and the judiciary has to large extent failed to deliver justice to people. By providing legal aid to the most marginalized thousands of the population, ZLSC is seen to have mitigated the overall situation. The situation fuels phenomena like mob-violence and extrajudicial killings and pave way for the special security forces to overstretch their mandates. The subject is very sensitive and difficult to address on the islands.  The evaluation stresses some positive outcomes when it comes to legal aid and services offered to clients – particularly when it comes to children in conflict with the law - and public education is highly rated and has achieved results (although not always as high as the baseline survey might have suggested). Higher level impacts were also found in the evaluation, linked to advocacy conducted by the Centre around legislative changes and development of policy. However, the lack of indicators at the outcome and impact levels in the Strategic Plan make measurement in this area fairly difficult. Two possible negative impacts were also found: the first related to the decision by the ZLSC to continue to work on the re-run of the 2015 election in 2016 despite the fact that the opposition chose to boycott the election (leading to allegations of political bias); and the second related to the decision to assist children in conflict with the law (leading to allegations that the Centre protects ‘criminals’). Steps have been taken to address the former but the latter is a problem that all organisations providing support to those accused of crime face that can only be partly addressed through increased public awareness.