Issues for Research

From MicroJustice

The following research issues are topics with which the Microjustice Bolivia team needs to cope, so help from experts and researchers is welcome:

• How to deal with pricing of Microjustice Products (how to develop the business case of products?)
• How to deal with marketing (how to conduct market research: demand and willingness to pay)
• How to develop a distribution system of Microjustice Facilitators (how to also develop their business case) that eventually will be able to operate in the entire country. Who are most suitable to act as a Microjustice Facilitator, with what local partners do they cooperate, how can they make a profit from microjustice, do they operate independently or are they part of a microjustice netwerk with a supervision system (for various reasons, the latter is the preferred alternative)?
• How to creatively develop products and therewith create economies of scale.

Another set of issues relates to solidarity. How can the principle of solidarity be used to develop a self-funded system for legal assistance? Microinsurance is completely based upon solidarity: the collective insures itself against calamities of its individual members. An important form of microcredit is the collective standing surety for each others loans. This insight can be applied to microjustice: what forms can be developed to have local communities bearing the risks of individuals?

• Connect to and cooperate with local structures, the way like Microjusticia Bolivia alreadty cooperates with the local microfinance bank (El Alto) and a municipality(Achacachi), that put their office space and logistic facilities at MJ Bolivia's disposal and jointly propagate their message.
• Possibly organize payments to the Microjustice Facilitator proportionate to capacity; payments are slightly more than the actual costs, in order to cover the costs of the central website, the central office, vouchers, etc.
• Involve local legal experts who work for an extra low tarriff (develop a kind of pro deo system).
• Offer vouchers to people who have been identified through local networks as people who really cannot afford a fee. These vouchers are financed by others.
• Address local governments, international donors (charity organizations and public donors) and appeal to solidarity instead of to their aid-attitude.
• For the BoP-research, it would be great if local networks and structures on which the solidarity principle can be formulated could be mapped out. Microjustice has to be supported by the local community, that is ctively involved. How can we organize this?

Some other issues:

• Basic needs in which the legal system has to provide.
• If the legal systems does provide in these needs, but in an inefficient and expensive manner (as is the case with most product we have already developed, like civil documentation), think of ways to better develop pricing, marketing and economies of scale. Next to this, proposals for improvement could be developed and for making this acceptable within the local structures.
• If the legal system does not provide in needs sufficiently (like for instance in the case of too expensive and complicated state-provided registration in rural areas: the amount of donor funds determines the number of registrations), parallel products and structures can be developed. Initially, these will not be legally valid, but they will provide in a practical need. One example relating to registration of land in rural areas: neighbours and local autorities can establish their own register, in which the borders of each's land is agreed upon and registered. This is what actually happens in Spain, when land is not yet formally registered and only private contracts exist. Such has probative value when it comes to protection against unlawful conduct of third parties.