In development work, ‘advocacy’ is a word in everybody’s lips. But what is it really?
1. Advocacy can be defined differently depending on the context it is being used-in. One of the most relevant definitions of advocacy is by the World Health Organization which defines it as a combination of social actions designed to gain political commitment, policy support, social acceptance and systems support for a particular goal or program. (WHO, 1995)
2. Advocacy in human rights work is a process that has different stages and each step requires different strategies. Some of the key steps that are involved in putting together an effective and well conceived advocacy/demanding campaign are:
• identifying an issue and understanding it in the proper local political context;
• building an evidence base and engaging others by building partner coalitions;
• elaborating a strategic plan; communicating its key message(s) and implementing its plans sequentially; and
• being accountable for all actions in the plan and monitoring/evaluating it as results of the advocacy campaign are shared (International Conference on Nutrition, 2008)
3. At country level, in order to achieve specific planned objectives, claim holders demanding involves working with complex institutional systems; no doubt. The advocating party will thus have to engage multiple constituencies characterized by different interests, values, perceptions and levels of influence. This is indispensable in order to create a critical mass of support for human rights (HR) with the needed normative shift towards a) the respect (cannot violate), b) the protection (must prevent, must provide accessible redress and must ensure no discrimination); and c) the fulfillment of HR (must move towards the realization of HR and must create an enabling environment through the allocation of sufficient resources).
4. As such, claim holders demanding cannot but be seen as an inherently political process –which is what makes advocacy so challenging. But advocacy also provides us with a good opportunity, precisely because the promotion of HR is a UN mandate in development work and advocacy is certainly central to that effect. While working in sensitive political situations, without shunning controversy when needed, it is important to find the right balance between engaging in constructive dialogue with government duty bearers (on the basis of human rights and UN values) and respecting local (people’s) decision-making processes… And even more, proactively fostering grassroots advocacy/claiming work for policy change. In global advocacy, on the other hand, it is important to make sure that our HR work demanding changes is always supporting –and never displaces– the role and the capacity of engaged national civil society.
5. As we already know, it is social (class) divisions, inequality and exclusion that drive HR violations. This being so, issues related to human rights, gender, sexual diversity and the rights of people living with HIV, for instance, need to be addressed knowing that these are among the most sensitive issues often representing major challenges for us in term of how to approach them. Particularly, the legal environment presents significant challenges for sustaining and scaling-up effective responses, especially in HIV and AIDS work.*
*: To follow this example, let me point out that protective social and legal environments are essential to reach universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV carriers. Nevertheless, in the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV (UNGASS 2010), nearly two thirds of the countries reported policies or laws that impede access to HIV and AIDS services for certain populations, including most at risk populations and minors. The lesson here is that leaders must be led to acknowledge how existing laws and law enforcement affect the HIV response: the law must work for the HIV response and not against it –and this requires substantive involvement in demanding.
6. For any HR demanding to be successful the following key steps must be planned well in advance:
• Framing the issues: Framing strategies is central to advocacy work. This includes a political framing and framing the language in which an issue is couched, i.e., the terms in which it is presented. This will determine the way in which it is being perceived and responded-to by the general public and by the policy makers/duty bearers. These messages should also be linked with relevant international commitments that each country has ratified to uphold.
• Ad-hoc research which is to generate the needed evidence: This implies figuring out what messages, ideas and concepts will influence the respective audience to change perceptions, behavior and/or choice. Generating evidence in support of these ideas, messages and concepts is very important.
• Working with the media: This implies developing a professional relationship with media representatives –coopting the media as a partner, not treating it as an adversary.
• Using social media tools: Using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Internet and other online tools will help to build and keep the momentum of advocacy efforts.
• Networking and working with other partners: Working with different partners on common goals will increase the impact of our HR work and will help us in achieving results. It also means working in a cross-sectoral manner, for example engaging different agencies and key partners in civil society, academia and within the UN system. This means engaging organizations working on health, gender, justice, finance, and other sectors.
• Lobbying to place our demands: Lobbying means applying the above tools to influence individuals who have the power to make the policy changes for which claim holder advocates are campaigning. While lobbying your target audience, getting the timing right, directly contacting the target duty bearers and being specific in our request(s) helps a lot. For example, this could mean supporting HR advocacy groups/networks to be represented at international conferences to lobby the government to take a stronger stand on human rights and related issues.
• Capacity strengthening of partners: Oftentimes, the leading agency on advocacy needs to build the capacity of its partners to bring everyone on the same level of understanding, as well as to share best approaches.
7. But not all is rosy. This work by claim holders also has everyday challenges that call for savvy, often improvised approaches such as:
• Moving from a general assessment of a HR violation to the analytical identification of concrete, politically- and technically-feasible steps to address it.
• Thinking about advocacy politically (i.e., first going through a thorough ‘horizon scan’ to assess duty bearers’ interests, values, perceptions, power relations, as well as best ways to change them).
• Identifying the most appropriate positioning needed within the context of conflicting government-civil society relationships.
• Adapting to changes among the major duty bearers particularly as pertains the turnover of government personnel.
• Reaching most at-risk populations, including drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men, as well as other vulnerable and marginalized groups in society.
• Adopting new avenues for meaningful local participation in both the design and implementation of HR advocacy campaigns; entry points can be found in already existing ongoing campaigns.
• Integrating HR learning into existing capacity building activities to ensure that HR learning is not a stand-alone initiative.
• Adapting and utilizing different education modalities in order to reach diverse audiences taking into account which modalities will be the most appropriate for the learning style(s) of the target group(s).
8. Bottom line, advocacy involves collecting and structuring information into a persuasive case; communicating the case to decision-makers/duty bearers and to other potential supporters, including the general public, through various interpersonal and media channels, as well as stimulating actions by social institutions, organized claim holders and sensitized duty bearers in support of the goal pursued. (WHO, 1995)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org