A Baseline Assessment of Access to State-Guaranteed Legal Aid for Forcibly Displaced Populations in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine

Overview

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh have generated increased levels of forced displacement across Ukraine and Armenia, as well as neighbouring countries including Moldova and Georgia. These developments have placed strain on national justice systems and increased demand for accessible, effective, and inclusive state-guaranteed legal aid for forcibly displaced populations.

In December 2023, UNDP, with support from the German Government, facilitated the adoption of the Tbilisi Declaration on Access to State-Guaranteed Legal Aid for Forcibly Displaced Populations (Tbilisi Declaration) by the state legal aid authorities of Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. 

The Tbilisi Declaration sets out nine principles promoting access to effective legal aid services for displaced populations, reinforcing a people-centred approach to justice:

1. Equal access to existing services without discrimination; 
2. Access to information; 
3. Accessibility of services;
4. Inclusivity of services;
5. Women’s rights; 
6. Quality of service; 
7. Policy frameworks that reflect displacement; 
8. Funding of services for displaced people;
9. Cooperation between international, national, and local stakeholders. 

This baseline assessment examines how these principles are being implemented in practice across the four signatory countries and identifies good practices, key gaps, and priority areas for reform.

The assessment draws on a desk-based review of existing data and qualitative research, including 39 key informant interviews (KIIs) and 18 focus group discussions (FGDs), conducted between July and September 2025.

About 150 participants took part in the assessment in the four signatory countries, including state legal aid providers, courts, lawyers, professional associations, non-governmental organisations, university law clinics, community-led organisations, displaced people, and international organisations. Women represented at least 50% of KII and FGD participants.

Key Findings

The study shows that Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine have made meaningful normative and institutional commitments to improving access to state-guaranteed legal aid for forcibly displaced people. 

At the same time, it highlights persistent barriers that prevent displaced people from fully exercising their right to legal aid across all four countries.

The study elaborates 77 country-specific recommendations based on the principles of the Tbilisi Declaration and findings from KIIs and FGDs. 

Key measures include:

• Improving outreach and information provision, particularly in relevant languages and accessible formats.
• Expanding digital service delivery to enable users to access the full range of legal aid services online, as a complementary tool to in-person services.
• Strengthening the systematic and continuous training and specialisation of legal aid providers.
• Enhancing data collection on displaced communities and their legal aid needs.
• Introducing systematic vulnerability screening tools and strengthening trauma-informed and gender-sensitive approaches to legal aid delivery.
• Ensuring adequate and predictable public funding for legal aid.
• Strengthening quality assurance mechanisms and making complaint and appeal procedures genuinely accessible to displaced people.
• Ensuring that displacement is explicitly reflected in national legal aid and human rights policy frameworks.
• Institutionalising cooperation with other state agencies, non-state legal aid providers, international organisations, and community- or refugee-led organisations.

Implementing these steps would help translate the Tbilisi Declaration's standards into more accessible, inclusive, and people-centred legal aid systems that are responsive to the lived experiences of displaced communities. 

Although focused on forcibly displaced populations, these recommendations can also strengthen state-guaranteed legal aid systems more broadly by placing people's rights and needs at the centre.

Authors

Dr Stefanie Lemke, Sergey Ghazinyan, Tatia Lomtadze, Veaceslav (Slava) Balan, Nataliia Rebenko

Disclaimer

The study was prepared with support from UNDP and the German Government. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of UNDP and the German Government.