Advocacy

What Is Advocacy?

Ultimately, human rights work seeks to improve people's lives. Therefore, a human rights approach that includes and encompasses people's perspectives is integral to any human rights campaign. This section explores these questions, and argues for a people-centered approach to advocacy.

• What Is People-Centered Advocacy?: People-centred advocacy is a set of organized actions aimed at influencing public policies, societal attitudes and socio-political processes that enable and empower the marginalized to speak for themselves.

Mapping Advocacy Strategies

Choosing and developing an effective advocacy strategy is vital to the success of any human rights campaign. This section will provide you with some tools and guiding questions to develop and implement an advocacy strategy appropriate to your particular context.

• Choosing the Right Advocacy Strategy: Advocacy strategies attempt to solve a problem step-by-step by getting at its systemic causes and focusing on specific issues.
• Different Advocacy Strategies for Different Moments: Advocacy usually involves a combination of different strategies for mobilizing support and producing change.
• Timing: Matching the Strategy to the Moment: Developing effective strategies requires careful political analysis of ever-changing opportunities and constraints.
• Triangle Analysis: Thinking about laws and policies in terms of structure, content, and culture can help in determining the right strategy for change.
• Comparing and Selecting Strategies: Once you have devised several possible responses to an issue, you can compare your options and choose the best combination that builds your strategy.
• Drafting a First Set of Advocacy Goals and Objectives: Determining what you want to accomplish and when will help you figure what strategy has the best chance of success.
• Dimensions of a Citizen-Centered Advocacy Strategy: Successful advocacy needs to produce change in government, the private sector, civil society, political space and culture, and the individual.
• Strategic Emphasis: With limited resources, you need to direct your activities in the areas where they can have the most impact.

Case Studies

The experiences of other activists may give you new ideas or help you to avoid potential pitfalls in the future. Read reflections from your colleagues in Sierra Leone, Peru and India about their respective advocacy campaigns.

• The War for Diamonds and the Response of Civil Society: The Sierra Leone Case Study: An activist reflects on the critical role civil society has played in ending Sierra Leone's long and brutal civil war, which was fueled mainly by diamonds.
• Choosing Battles: A Campaign Against Torture in Peru: An activist reviews the strategies and lessons learned from her organization's campaign against torture in Peru.
• Confronting Child Sexual Abuse: A Case Study from India: A study of the lessons learned from a campaign against incest and child sexual abuse in India.

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