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Advocacy toolkit - Planning and implementing advocacy work
Aim: To practise using a planning framework for advocacy work.
- There are many different advocacy planning frameworks – this toolkit uses an adapted version of a framework developed by the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) which has been used for a number of years by AIDS service organisations around the world. ICASO is an international network of AIDS service organisations, covering all continents of the world. It is based in Canada and works through its regional offices in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe.
- The advocacy framework can be used in many different ways. This section focuses on its use to plan advocacy work systematically; however, it is also a useful check-list for making a quick advocacy response.
- This framework can be applied to advocacy action at all levels: local, national and international.
- Activities within this section will allow the participants to gain key planning skills by practising using the framework and learning from others.
- When participants are practising these planning skills they will also deepen their understanding of what advocacy is and how it can be achieved to address the issues they face.
- These activities provide an opportunity for the participants to build partnerships and alliances with other organisations attending the workshop.
- The framework can be introduced to the participants in a number of ways depending on:
- time available
- the needs of the participants
- the possibility of carrying out advocacy fieldwork during the workshop
- Most workshops are an ‘artificial’ environment – including participants that are not necessarily natural allies or possibly limited representation from beneficiaries. Therefore this section aims to practise planning advocacy work rather than developing real action plans during the workshop time. However, in some exceptional cases this section can be, and has been, used to plan advocacy action that can be carried out during the workshop or implemented afterwards.
- Once this planning framework has been used a couple of times, it is possible to see how the steps are interlinked and how steps can be revisited during the planning process.
Choosing how to facilitate Section 2
The advocacy framework in this section can be introduced to participants during a workshop in a number of ways. Three approaches have been described below:
1 Carry out the activities as described in this section with appropriate adaptation. This allows the participants to carry out a participatory activity to practise each step of the planning framework by working in three groups. Each group identifies a general advocacy issue and practises planning how the issue could be addressed together.
2 Apply the advocacy framework to a case study of advocacy work and think through the planning it would have required. The participants can be asked to work in small groups to choose an example of advocacy work (either their own, or one from the toolkit) and apply this to the advocacy framework. This can be achieved by imagining how the original advocates would have planned actions to achieve their aims.
3 Discuss the importance of each step of the advocacy framework by reflecting on past advocacy work and deciding how it could have been improved with better planning. The participants can be asked to work in small groups to go through each step of the framework (using handouts and information from the toolkit that can be summarised) and discuss their experiences in relation to past advocacy work and what they have learned from planning (or not planning!) these steps in the past.
The discussion could cover the following kinds of points:
- Which steps are the most important to plan carefully?
- Which steps are potentially the most difficult to plan and why?
- Which steps might take longer than others to plan?
Advantages and disadvantages of the above three facilitation approaches
Advantages
1 The participants can systematically practise each planning step in detail so that they can repeat the process as described in the toolkit with confidence within their organisations after the workshop.
2 This approach does not involve diverse groups planning ‘real’ advocacy work together (which can be difficult if their organisations are not natural allies). This process is also quicker than the first approach.
3 The participants can share a lot of experiences and really discuss the importance of planning each step. They can also facilitate this section of the workshop themselves.
Disadvantages
1 This series of activities described in this section will take the equivalent of three mornings to implement
2 This process involves a lot of guesswork or may only be based on the experiences of one NGO in the group. Also there are fewer opportunities to develop new partnerships and alliances among the NGOs, or to put advocacy into practice outside the workshop setting.
3 The participants will not be able to apply each step to one problem or issue to see how the planning process can be used as a whole. This activity also requires good facilitation on behalf of the participants.
General facilitators’ notes for Section 2
- Make sure that each group includes people with a range of skills, experience and ability.
- There are some steps within the advocacy framework which are key and which can be difficult to plan or address during a workshop – these include:
- Selecting an issue
- Developing aims and objectives
- Plan how you will manage timings during the workshop if these activities take longer than expected. You could include an unplanned session in the workshop schedule late in the week to allow you flexibility if the planning steps overrun into the next day. If this session is not needed for Section 2 it could be used to clarify any ongoing misunderstanding, share case-study examples or discuss future possible advocacy work after the workshop. Alternatively, Steps 4 and 5 can be combined to save time.
- As far as possible, ensure that all the participants understand each step correctly before moving to the next.
- Monitor the small groups closely, to ensure they have understood the activity. If there are enough facilitators, it is ideal if one facilitator takes responsibility for monitoring one group through the whole planning process.
- Make sure each group displays the results of each step somewhere visible in the room. Keep the work of each group together.
- There is usually not enough time in a workshop for each group to present their work for each step – so ‘gallery walk’ or ‘market place’ presentations and whole group discussions are suggested at three points during the eight steps.
Example (photo)
Participants in Zimbabwe planning their advocacy work using the advocacy framework introduced in this section of the toolkit.
Reference: Photo taken at an advocacy skills-building workshop for HIV/AIDS, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Zimbabwe, July 2001.
Section 2 Introduction to the advocacy planning framework
Activity 2 Objective: By the end of this session participants will be able to explain the benefits of planning their advocacy work systematically
Instructions
Timing: 30 minutes
1 Encourage participants to focus on the benefits of planning advocacy work in a systematic way by asking the following kinds of questions:
- What are the advantages of planning our work?
- Do the same advantages also apply to planning advocacy work?
- What could be the effects of not planning our advocacy work?
2 Introduce the advocacy framework (see below and Handout 1, ‘Advocacy Framework’, at the end of Section 2).
3 Lead a brief discussion with the participants about the framework by asking the following kinds of questions:
- Does the advocacy framework seem logical?
- Can we plan for reactive advocacy work? Do the planning steps still apply?
- As a planning process, are any of the steps more important than others? If so, which ones and why?
Emphasise that:
- They can adapt the framework after the workshop if they wish but that the framework will be followed in the existing order during the workshop
- The planning steps stop after Step 7; Step 8 covers implementation (see Section
4 , ‘Advocacy in Action’) and also covers monitoring and evaluation, which relates to implementation rather than planning
4 Explain to the participants that they will practise using this framework by working in three groups. Each group will address an issue of their choice. One group will plan advocacy work at the international level, one at the national level, and one at the local level (see Handout 2, ‘Levels of Advocacy’, at the end of Section 1). They will stay in the same groups for all the activities in Section 2.
5 Ask the participants to choose which group they would like to work in. Try to ensure that each group has roughly the same number of participants and range of skills, experience and ability. Explain that they will all have the opportunity to practise the same skills and use the same framework, whichever group they are in. The participants are likely to learn more if they work in groups where the other participants are from different NGOs.
6 Explain that the groups will practise each step of the framework by applying it to their chosen issue. There will be a chance to share ideas between the groups after every couple of steps.
Advocacy framework
Step 1 Select an issue or problem you want to address
Step 2 Analyse and research the issue/problem
Step 3 Develop specific objectives for your advocacy work
Step 4 Identify your targets
Step 5 Identify your resources
Step 6 Identify your allies
Step 7 Create an action plan
Step 8 Implement, monitor and evaluate
Reference: Adapted from an advocacy framework developed by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance.
Example (photo)
Participants at an advocacy workshop in India being introduced to the advocacy planning framework. [shown as a series of steps, written out on sheets of paper, arranged going up a wall]
Reference: Photo taken at an advocacy skills-building workshop for HIV/AIDS work, India HIV/AIDS Alliance and International HIV/AIDS Alliance, India, November 2001.
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 977 Kbytes)