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Advocacy card - Analysing and influencing legislation or policies
The skill of understanding the effects of a policy or law, or their implementation, is essential for advocacy work.
This skill can be used by advocates working both inside the decision-making system (for example, members of committees) as well as outside.
Analysis of legislation or policy that could affect you, your members or your beneficiaries is important so that you can advocate for its improvement or implementation. Legislate and policies might include:
- Draft or proposed policies
- New policies
- Long-established policies.
Of course, not all policies and legislation are written – for example, there are traditional laws and customs, or decisions made and communicated without being written down. If, however, their design and implementation is influenced by powerful individuals or groups, then like written policies and legislation, they can be challenged through advocacy. These kind of policies and practices also require analysis. However, it is harder to analyse unwritten policies or legislation because there may be disagreement about what the policy is.
Advocates should try to:
1 Agree on what the policy or law is, or on how it is implemented (necessary for unwritten policies and laws, and for analysis of implementation).
2 Analyse the policy or legislation, or its implementation.
3 Suggest how it can be improved.
4 Suggest how it can be implemented better.
Analysis usually involves obtaining and analysing draft policies, new policies or longestablished policies, which can be long and boring documents! However, the skill of understanding such documents can be learned and improved with practice. It is essential to involve people affected by the policy or law or its implementation – they are the ‘experts’. Participatory methods such as drama or cause-and-effect flowcharts can assist in identifying negative impacts and suggesting solutions.
Advantages
- It uses the expertise of NGOs /CBOs in understanding how the lives of ordinary people are affected.
- It can encourage decision-makers to work more closely with NGOs/CBOs in future.
- Changes brought about by advocacy can affect many people – therefore changing them for the better may have a relatively large impact compared to working with people in a more direct way.
Disadvantages
- Technical jargon and official documents can frighten many people away from participating in this method.
- It can be difficult and time-consuming.
- Even constructive criticism can offend policy-makers if policies have taken a long time to develop or are politically sensitive; this can impact negatively on the organisation.
Skills-building activity
Objective: By the end of this session participants will be able to identify at least three questions which are useful for analysing and influencing policy or legislation
Preparation time: 2 hours
Resources: example of policy or legislation (can be anything from one sentence to one page); ‘How to...’ Handout
Instructions
Timing: 1 hour
1 Introduce the topic, and explain the objective of the activity.
2 Ask participants to give examples of policy and legislation at local, national and international level – written or unwritten.
3 Ask participants why analysing legislation or policy is a useful skill for advocacy.
4 Divide participants into groups of three or four people.
5 Give each pair a copy of a legislation or policy document.
6 Ask participants to read the document to each other, and use the ‘Questions to
ask when reading public policy or legislation’ (on the back page of this card) to review its content. Encourage them to add any other questions they think are useful.
7 Ask participants to write down any questions or areas where more information is needed to help them understand the legislation or policy.
8 Bring participants together in the whole group. Use these questions for discussion:
- How did you find the process of analysing the legislation or policy?
- Which individuals, groups and institutions are affected by this policy/legislation? How can you involve them in analysing it, to increase your legitimacy?
- What are the differences between analysing written and unwritten policies and decisions?
- At what stage in the advocacy process is policy and legislation analysis a useful skill?
- What advocacy methods can you use to influence the policy or legislation you have been analysing?
Facilitators’ notes
- The first four ‘Questions to ask...’ are the most important. Do not worry if there is no time to use all the other questions.
- If participants are analysing unwritten laws or policies, they will first need to agree on what the law/policy/tradition says.
- If participants are analysing the implementation or lack of implementation of a policy or law, you may need to rephrase the analysis questions for them.
- You may want to ask some pairs to do a different activity – preparing some advice (for example, ‘Try to...’ and ‘Try not to...’ tips) for analysing and influencing policy or legislation.
Example: Analysing legislation and policy
Section 6.6 of the Zimbabwean National HIV/AIDS policy makes wilful transmission of HIV/AIDS a criminal offence.
Who benefits from this legislation or policy?
Negative partners of people living with HIV/AIDS who know their status
Married people, women and children (vulnerable groups in general)
Who loses?
Infected people who know their status
How does the legislation or policy affect marginalised groups?
It is not protective of married women and children who are abused sexually
It gives women the right to say NO!
It can create methods of supporting victims – for example, raped children
It puts infected people more outside society
Is this something ordinary people will understand?
It is difficult for people to understand because of myths and cultural issues
NO. There was no education after the launch of the policy. Ordinary people do not have the skills to analyse policies.
Reference: Adapted from an advocacy skills-building workshop for HIV/AIDS, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Zimbabwe, July 2001.
Advice
- Try to consult or involve people affected by the policy or legislation.
- Try to be positive about the good parts of the policy or legislation.
- Try to ask for a meeting with decisionmakers to present and explain your analysis.
- Try to only respond to policies and legislation when you have something concrete to say – this will help maintain or gain credibility for your organisation.
- Try to use the decision/policy-makers’ language when putting your points of view across, and support your statements with facts and evidence where appropriate.
- Try to offer solutions when analysing the policy or legislation.
- Try to develop contacts or allies who can show you draft policies and legislation.
- Try not to analyse a policy or legislation if you don’t understand the issue.
- Try not to suggest that the decision/policy-makers may have any improper motives.
- Try not to criticise policies or legislation for individuals’ personal reasons.
How to...analyse legislation or policy
Introduction
The first step in analysing and influencing a piece of legislation or policy is to understand what it is actually saying and consider whether it can be improved.
Questions to ask when reading public policy or legislation
The following list of questions may help you analyse a policy or legislation:
1 Who benefits from this legislation or policy (if anyone)?
2 Who loses (if anyone)?
3 What will be the consequences five years from now of enforcing this?
4 How does the legislation or policy affect marginalised groups?
5 Is this something ordinary people can understand?
6 Who supports this law/policy, and why?
7 How did this issue first come to the notice of decision-makers?
8 What is the financial cost?
9 Can it be enforced? If so, by whom, and how?
10 What is the penalty if you don’t obey this law/policy?
11 Does the law/policy violate the UN Declaration of Human Rights or any other convention signed by your country?
12 Is the law/policy consistent with your own country’s Bill of Rights and/or Constitution?
Reference: Adapted from Training for Transformation, Book 4, by Anne Hope and Sally Timmel, Mango Press, Zimbabwe, 2000.
NOTE: When using these questions to analyse unwritten laws or policies, begin with this question:
- What does the unwritten law/policy/tradition say?
How to use your analysis to influence legislation and policy
Once the answers to these question have been agreed you need to act by writing a position paper to the policy-makers, sending a press release to the media, organising a meeting or giving a presentation, etc. All these forms of advocacy are covered by other Advocacy in Action Cards within the toolkit.
Source: Advocacy in Action
This is an extract from Advocacy in Action: a toolkit to support NGOs and CBOs responding to HIV/AIDS, developed in collaboration with the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) and published by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in June 2002.
To view the whole report follow this link.
To download this section, complete with graphics, in pdf format (which requires Adobe Acrobat software to read it) follow this link (file size 1.0 Mbytes)