1. To facilitate the provision of relevant support and development services and resources for the sector.

Our focus is on building up the capacity of advice offices to offer services of a high quality to poor communities, while at the same time positioning the sector more strategically in the developmental landscape of contemporary South Africa[1].  This includes advocating for, and securing, a greater level of participatory governance, mainly targeted at local government level. Advice offices are well placed to encourage a culture of demand (rights-based) at community level for basic services and administrative justice. This would involve integrated development plans, community scorecards (community monitoring to reinforce accountability) as well as encouraging communities to take more responsibility for their own development and growth. 

In addition, advice offices are well placed to enrich and enhance service delivery by government as partners, seeking to help make tangible all basic human rights. 

2. To mobilise resources for the sector in the context of a newly defined model of sustainability. 

A key imperative in the short-term is to mobilize funds for those advice offices with nominal or no income. Our strategy is to solicit funding for a minimum three-year period to allow the sector to explore and secure more sustainable, local funding opportunities[2], and lessen its dependence on foreign donor sources.

Our efforts to secure more local funds will focus on advocating for recognition by government so that monies can be sourced from the national fiscus.[3] We will also explore contract opportunities with government, especially at a local level. In addition, we will target the private sector, especially the large mining companies, to help fund advice offices that provide services to their workers, both in their communities and at the workplace.  Additional resources such as deployment of volunteers, sharing training resources, etc. will also form part of this longer-term sustainability model.

3. To be the voice of the sector supported by an authoritative national knowledge source.

NADCAO will use its national profile and collective strengths to advocate government, business and other stakeholders on behalf of advice offices. However, the alliance does not claim to be the official, mandated representative of all community-based advice offices around the country, but rather a forum of concerned and committed stakeholders working on behalf of the sector[4].

NADCOA believes that another key imperative is to create a national knowledge source for the sector, which will provide an authoritative and comprehensive databank on the work of community-based paralegals and advice offices around the country. This will help inform advocacy strategies and efforts to secure greater access to social justice for the poor.

The development of a Central Case Management System using web-based information technology will allow all advice offices to upload their cases for national processing and interpretation, as well as provide a web page for each participating advice office and email addresses for all community-based paralegals.

Apart from case management, NADCAO’s website will also showcase best practices in the sector, map critical information about the location of advice offices through an on-line Geographic Information System (GIS), and include a section for the public providing information on developments in the sector. 

The website www.nadcao.org.za went live earlier in 2007 and advice offices wishing to publish their profiles should contact the NADCAO administrator on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .