Planning an Advocacy Campaign 

Objectives 

• To make participants understand the process of advocacy 
• To make the participants experience the decision-making and policy making processes 
• To make the participants involve in advocacy process  

Duration and Planning

• Recap of the training : 20 mins
• Problem analysis : 15 mins 
• Stakeholder analysis : 15 mins 
• Choosing the Tool : 30 mins  
• Creating a Strategy : 40 mins 
• Feedback Round : 20 mins 

Materials 

• Flipchart 
• Board Marker
• Coloured Pens
• Hand outs  

Recommended Method 

The facilitator asks participants to go over all over the knowledge that they have gained throughout the training activity to address the issues that they see and how they can address them for social change impacting the lives of the young people. It is not as an evaluative purpose but making participants to revisit the knowledge that they have developed through the activities. The main purpose of this recap to make participants dig deeper on the issues as well as use the lobbying, budgeting and the injustices that they have realised throughout the training to use during this session. 

Then the facilitator provides participants with the model of advocacy step by step that the following process should be followed throughout the workshop. The facilitator explains that, the participants should continue with the same group that they have developed the policy recommendations. 

1) Identification and analysis of the problem/issue : During this phase, the participants should visit the knowledge concerning to their policy recommendations which they might use it as a problem/issue during this phase to reduce the time that should be spent. During this process, the facilitator explains the each area of the problem/issue that they should analyse by providing the following information : 

Content is the laws, legislation, budget, etc. related with the problem/issue you identified.

Structure is the official and/or un-official mechanisms for the implementation of a law and/or policy; such as police, ministries, courts, education & health programs, etc.

Culture analysis include an analysis of values, behaviours and attitudes which influence perceptions of people towards a specific issue. Religion, customs, habits, class, gender, ethnicity, age, etc. also plays an important role on values and behaviours.

During this process, the participants should fill the following form : 

According to the problem that they have developed policy recommendation already, they have to figure out the problem’s related issues concerning the culture, structure and the content. In this phase, the participants should develop the sections concerning to the culture, structure and content to develop the solutions by referring to the issues in one section which is easier for them to tackle. 

2) Stakeholder analysis : During this section, the participants should work on the target groups as well as the groups of influence such as policy makers, civil society, government, academy, business and or media. During this process, the facilitator should tell participants to re-visit the lobbying workshops to grasp an idea about the target audience and who can contribute to their cause. 

During this process, the participants should not think or deal with the engagement strategy of every stakeholder but list them without considering the engagement possibilities or how hard they can include specific stakeholder to the advocacy processes. 

3) Choosing the Tool: During this phase, the participants were informed about the tools for the advocacy with the fundamental tools of advocacy: 

• Organizing
• Education and Awareness Raising
• Media/Press Work
• Mobilization

During this phase, the facilitator should emphasize that lobbying can be considered as one of the advocacy strategies though, the participants should work on the development of the strategies by choosing the tool ( consult the tool list ). They continue to work with the same groups to decide on their strategies. They can use the tools and possible activities that are indicated by specificizing them with the context of the issue that they have defined for 30 minutes.  After the selection of the tools and laying out the details of each activity according to the following table : 

In each section, the participants will fill out the name of the tool that they chose, the activity they plan to do i.e. visiting to the mayor, planned measure i.e. providing a report or declaration, reason i.e. mayor can be an ally, s/he is the direct decision maker of the issue that is related to the problem, resource i.e. contacts to reach out the mayor. 

4) Creating a Strategy :  After the implementation of tool selection phase, the participants will develop an activity plan by using the tools indicated in the previous section by considering the results, timeline, resources and indicators of achievement. 

Advocacy Strategy Action Plan 

After the development of the strategy action plan, the participants will present their results in an exhibition format, the others can provide feedback with the post-its and the facilitator should lead the group to visit every develop strategy to make the participants give feedback to each other and  finalise the strategies that are developed. 

Additional Information and Readings
Civic Space Advocacy Information Note : https://civicspace.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/advocacy-workshop-info-note-5d628ca0f41f4-3.pdf

Smart GOAL Examples : https://www.bitesizelearning.co.uk/resources/smart-goals-meaning-examples

Tool List