Advocacy and Campaigning

1. Advocacy and Campaigning OECD Informal Experts’ Workshop Bonn, 19-20 March 2007 Steve Tibbett

2. Defining advocacy • Advocacy is about change. It is strategic. It is planned. It should have clear objectives. • Confusion about advocacy comes from the root of the word – to advocate, which means speak on someone else’s behalf. (Many people associate advocacy with the legal definition – an “advocate”) • Changes in advocacy theory and practice – new thinking in development: ActionAid • Often in contemporary advocacy, organisations and campaigners facilitate people to speak for themselves: ‘agency of the poor’ • Campaigning is a subset of advocacy

3. Defining advocacy in relation to communication • Communications is a more specific, learned discipline? • Advocacy is quite a new discipline, in many ways still finding it’s feet. • Communication should be strategic but it can often be reactive • Advocacy must (almost) always be strategic (overused) • Communications may be about the status quo, preserving something. Advocacy is about change. • Communications can support Advocacy objectives • Advocacy (mostly) shouldn’t support communications objectives

4. Defining (advocacy) campaigning • Changing policies and practices; • Part of a political strategy for achieving change; • Sustained; • Plan of tactical action within a strategic framework; • Situated in the public sphere; • Emerging discipline; • An art not a science

5. Good campaigns & Why • Debt – focussed objectives and broad constituency • Make Poverty History – political clout and clever use of communications • Friends of the Earth –strategic and tactical • Stop Smoking in Public Places – building behind the scenes public support • Corporate lobbying – clever influencing

6. Good campaigns are learning campaigns! • Positives that Make Poverty History learned from jubilee 2000 • Importance of the international sphere • The use of the media • The use of a broad constituency • Broad range of tactics • Some Negatives • No secretariat or spokesperson • Political difficulties • Distance from government

7. Key challenges in (measuring) campaigns and advocacy • What indicators to use?: Companies Bill • Qualitative vs. quantative: how many MP’s signed the motion • Outcomes vs. outputs: how many people took action • Paucity of information: secrecy Western Sahara • Time lag: changes may be in the future • There may be many actors – which is prime? • Internal opposition • Funding-led challenges:

8. Why evaluate your advocacy? • Lessons need to be synthesized & captured • It’s a good discipline, keeps you to your objectives • It is a mechanism of accountability – important for governments • Next time it is easier to justify the expense

9. Top tips for evaluation of advocacy • Have few, clear objectives • Don’t try and evaluate lots of things at once – be clear about what you are measuring • Try and ‘depoliticise’ your evaluation process – get wide agreement at the beginning • Measure something after a decent amount of time • Have qualitative indicators of success – sometimes difficult to work out • Indicators are the key area of debate in advocacy and campaigning – no one has really worked out how to do them properly. • Indicators should be qualitative, mostly. Quantitative indicator of success usually skew your activity away from your objectives: ie x amount of people signed up, y amount of people communicated with, instead of policy z changed.

10. Top tips - continued • You can have additional indicators for progress – but need to be careful they are not elevated to the status of objectives. • Opinion polling is under-used for analysing changes in public attitudes in the development sector but needs to be sophisticated ie don’t need everyone to agree – needs to look at key sectors • Need to keep room for flexibility and innovation. Communication and advocacy is more art than science! • Evaluation should be appropriate for the type of organisation/team. They should not be off-the-shelf but bespoke. • Do not ignore the results of your evaluation! Evaluation can easily become politicised and then are often ignored. It is important that you find ways to integrate and synthesise the findings. You will need to meet to discuss and agree which ones you accept. You don’t have to accept them all.

11. Points for discussion • Should objectives not be set if they are unverifiable/measurable i.e. not entirely SMART? • What is the appropriate use of government’s advocacy work? • If you are evaluating using other governments departments/politicians how much can you trust their answers?