Always There: Self-Service Digital Legal Aid for Displaced Populations
THE CHALLENGE
The traditional approaches to delivering legal aid services to conflict-affected groups rely upon human resources and in-person interaction. Hence, they are limited by time, resources available, access constraints, and geography while the legal needs of the vulnerable groups vastly outstrip the supply of services. Moreover, traditional non-digital case management approaches limit beneficiary access to accurate real-time updates on progress and do not allow capable beneficiaries to self-serve their case. Many of the current approaches to delivering content digitally are meanwhile static in nature, where the information provided to beneficiaries does not dynamically adjust to a user’s personal characteristics, location, and specific needs.
THE SOLUTION
Responding to the gap in legal aid services for conflict-affected groups in Lebanon, Colombia, Iraq, Uganda and Yemen, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) sought to pilot a novel legal aid platform (KOBLI) that would enable users to utilize self-help tools to obtain legal information related to their displacement status. Under CHIC seed funding, the KOBLI platform was effectively launched as both a web application and mobile app in Lebanon, first to NRC staff only and then to the public, with features including other languages, step-by-step legal guides, and multiple channels for users to request in-person assistance when dealing with a complex legal case, among other features. By the end of the seed funding phase in January 2023, a total of 22,045 end users were reached with the KOBLI application. While the platform was designed to serve as a self-help tool, users with more complex legal issues were also able to use the platform to get connected to a legal expert. As such, the KOBLI platform has turned into a new intake modality for NRC legal aid services in Lebanon whereby inquiries raised by users are assessed and then referred to the focal points at appropriate field offices. In January 2023 alone, a total of 242 inquiries were received, demonstrating heavy reliance on the platform for legal purposes beyond just self-help tools.
