ACA helps West African communities threatened by the destructive effects of development projects to take control of their own future. We work with communities to design their own sustainable development plans and to advocate for the realization of these plans. In addition, we coordinate and support the Public Interest Lawyering Initiative for West Africa(PILIWA), a network of lawyers and attorneys in nine West African countries.
Through PILIWA we focus on how to make justice and legal remedies accessible to West African communities. We chose that focus because we believe that progress on behalf of communities who have been the victims of human rights violations in the form of judicial decisions from domestic and regional tribunals will engender systemic change within the affected countries and bring powerful benefits for vulnerable groups such as women, indigenous persons, and other marginalized groups as well as the larger society. We employ a range of legal tools such as negotiation using the law as a foundation and strategic litigation to bring legal solutions to affected communities.