Book launch: Informal settlement communities fight for rights and dignity

IDRC, alongside Namati and the Grassroots Justice Network, is delighted to invite you to the official launch of Legal Empowerment in Informal Settlements: Experiences from the Global South. This new book spotlights the grassroots justice strategies of communities living in informal settlements. 

The book is the result of a collaborative effort that began three years ago, when a group of practitioners and academics from across Africa, Asia and Latin America came together around a shared question: How can legal empowerment strategies help people living in informal settlements claim their rights and shape the policies that affect them? Edited by Adrian Di Giovanni, team leader of IDRC’s Democratic and Inclusive Governance program, and Luciana Bercovich, senior manager of the Grassroots Justice Network, Namati, the book brings together original research and real-life stories of communities using the law not as an abstract concept, but as a living tool for dignity and justice.  

Alongside presentations by the editors and several authors, the webinar will feature keynote reflections from Leilani Farha, global director of The Shift and former United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, and Diana Mitlin, director of the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester, United Kingdom.  

Together, the speakers will take us inside the innovative strategies emerging from informal settlements: grassroots paralegals in Latin America helping residents fight eviction; community-led mapping projects in Africa securing land tenure; advocacy movements in Asia pushing for policy change that puts people first. These are not isolated stories — they are part of a growing global movement that is reshaping what justice looks like on the ground. 

Namati