Monitoring and Evaluating Legal Aid Service Provisions, Gaps, Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The Constitution of Kenya 2010 guarantees everyone the right to access to justice. Legal aid services enable indigents to access justice through legal advice, representation and education at no cost. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of legal aid services is important to ensure the indigent access quality legal services. M&E entails collection of information from legal service providers by measuring objectives, impact on the community and efficiency of the service in assessing performance. It ensures services become accessible, efficient and credible. Although the Legal Aid Act mandates the National Legal Aid Service (NLAS) to monitor and evaluate the activities of legal service providers. NLAS launched the regulation and code of conduct for legal aid providers in July 2020. The framework though recent is deficient in elaborate framework and guideline for NLAS to observe and analyze critically the programs of the legal service providers that are useful to legal aid providers, donors and relevant stakeholders in creating stable and efficient programs. This paper interrogates challenges in M&E of legal aid service against the backdrop of the existing frameworks and how Egerton University Faculty of Law Legal Aid Project has worked around it. It examines other jurisdictions M&E frameworks, to ensure services provided across the country are harmonized. Through this, opportunities and lessons are identified that Kenya can learn from and borrow to strengthen the M&E frameworks. It probes mechanisms adopted by NLAS in developing an M&E framework for legal aid service provision. M&E gauges legal aid providers’ performance, efficacy, efficiency and quality of access to justice. The regulations for M&E encourage legal aid providers in agenda setting, measuring outcomes and impact of services.