Advocacy is the act of well-planned and intended series of actions to influence change. In democracies, advocacy is also a formal form of voicing a need for change and/or enforcing rights through legal mechanism. Advocacy aims to influence a change in policy visualization, identification, formulation, implementation and execution. It also aims to access information and create democratic spaces for greater say for citizens in governance matters. Advocacy is thus a planned, political process by engaging certain key information and skills, to influence policy outcomes. The scope of the module covers issues that would enable readers to understand the importance of advocacy in democratic political systems.

The concept and principles of advocacy enable developmental communication. Advocacy as a term involves 'speaking up on behalf of others'. In the context of social accountability, advocacy refers to efforts of an individual or group to effectively communicate, convey, negotiate or assert the interests, desires, needs and rights of oneself or others or a collective. As such, it is used by a wide range of actors (citizens to parliamentarians), addressing a variety of issues (public policy, strategies, expenditure, service delivery and so on), using different strategies for the same (research, public monitoring, performance measurement, pro-active disclosure, participatory planning, civic education, media coverage, coalition building), thereby calling for different levels of action (from local to national to global). Advocacy finds meaning in letting know and putting across a demand or a message for greater accountability. The key processes and stages in advocacy are:

• Identifying Issues - Involves identifying an issue and developing a strategy around it
• Research & Analysis - Involves accessing or generating relevant information and building a credible evidence base to hold public officials accountable
• Mobilizing Support - Involves using the information collected for mobilizing community support through information sharing (Going public)
• Rallying Support & Building Coalitions - Involves organizing the citizens to take collective action and develop the capacity of CSOs to facilitate and support such community mobilization
• Advocating & Negotiating - Involves eliciting responses and negotiating with public officials for better public accountability
• Enabling & Disabling Conditions - Involves activities to influence and change governance perspectives by creating conducive environment

All types of advocacy require campaigning and mobilizing support and hence communication strategies in Action become important. Such communication involves familiarity with the issue, whether health or budget or education, and the knowledge of the process. Advocacy essentially involves some element of political activity as it rests on 'influencing' decision makers and thereby decision-making. It could range from the benign collaboration to activism, collaborative lobbying to resisting as well as protesting. Some of the key areas where advocacy has played a pivotal role include budget advocacy, gender advocacy, health advocacy and water advocacy.

All types of advocacy require campaigning and mobilizing support and hence communication becomes important. Communication for advocacy involves familiarity with the issue, whether health or budget or education, and the knowledge of the process. Advocacy would involve developing specific communications and media strategies (including media analysis) to guide stakeholders in developing their strategy. Topping the list is the preparation of information, education and communication (IEC) material for effective dissemination of the issue and related information.

Some good sources available on advocacy and communication include Practical Action in Advocacy, Advocacy Toolkit by Gordon, Graham and Citizens as partners, OECD handbook on Information, Consultation, Public Participation in Policy making by Marc Gramberger.

Best Reads

1. Gordon, Graham (2002): Practical Action in Advocacy, Advocacy Toolkit, TEARFUND
2. Gramberger, Marc: Citizens as partners, OECD handbook on Information, Consultation, Public Participation in Policy making, 2001
3. Holloway, Richard: NGO Corruption Fighters Resource Book: How NGOs can use monitoring and Advocacy to fight Corruption, 2006.

Case Studies

1. The Advocacy Sourcebook, WaterAid
2. Green, Joanne : Advocacy and Water - a practical guide, The Advocacy Toolkit, TEARFUND