Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor

[2] In response, the report proposed four “pillars” for legal empowerment of the poor, which, the Commission argued, would enable those living in poverty to become partners in, rather than passive recipients of, development programs.

[6] Legal empowerment of the poor, by contrast, sought to bring excluded voices into the development discussion, while at the same time working to expand protections afforded to those living in poverty.

The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, co-chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto, Peruvian economist and founder of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), was launched in 2005 by a group of developing and industrialized countries including Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Guatemala, Iceland, India, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Tanzania and the United Kingdom, and completed its work in 2008.

These national and regional processes grounded the work of Legal Empowerment in local realities, and contributed to recommendations that reflected diverse cultural, socio-economic and political environments.

For example, Matthew Stephens, in his article "The Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor: An Opportunity Missed,"[10] argued that the Report lacked sufficient empirical data.