Legal Advisory Services

Sound laws and strong legal institutions are essential parts of the enabling environment for agricultural development and sustainable resources management. The emphasis that project design gives to legal technical assistance will vary from project to project. In some cases, legal technical assistance will be the primary focus. In other cases, it may be only one of several components. For example, a project on policy or institutional reform in a particular sector may include components that focus on economic, technical and institutional strengthening, as well as including a component that examines the opportunities and constraints posed by the legal framework.

Whether or not law is the principal focus of a project, legal technical assistance usually requires a multi-disciplinary approach, combining the efforts of legal experts with technical experts in the specific sector. Thus, even in "stand alone" legal assistance projects, legal experts will often work side by side with other types of specialists to ensure that legal recommendations are technically well-grounded. Legal technical assistance projects may on occasion have a regional focus. For example, governments may request assistance in drafting regional agreements on a particular subject, or in harmonizing national legislation between countries to promote regional objectives (e.g. for the management of water, fisheries, forestry or wildlife resources).

Technical assistance in law is a crosscutting activity that is potentially relevant to any of the subject areas within FAO's mandate. Depending on a Member Country's specific needs, FAO may be called upon to provide assistance in food law, animal law, plant law, fisheries law, water law, land law, forestry law, trade law, biodiversity and wildlife law, environmental law, laws concerning rural institutions, marketing and credit, legal aspects of gender and numerous other related specialties.

 

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