EU-CORD Advocacy Workshop November 2012

Expectations Give new direction and extra energy for EU-CORD’s advocacy in Brussels. Make people enthusiastic to commit themselves/their organisations to contribute to EU-CORD advocacy. Learn about the aims and strategies for future advocacy. Get insight into the strategies and results of past advocacy. Understand how EU-CORD functions and what the relation between different members is, and map the strong and weak points of the organisations with regard to EU lobby. Share experiences and ideas for the future on how we can support Southern partners in their advocacy and how we could link the Southern and Northern lobbies. Learn more about EU-CORD, what members are doing on advocacy. Be able to take advocacy more into strategic planning and activities of individual organisations. Hear clear case examples of successful advocacy at country level. Learn how advocacy can bring more tools to the marketing tools mix. See if there is common interest in advocacy work as EU-CORD. Combine strengths as EU-CORD members lobbying in Brussels. Identify opportunities in the field of sustainable economic development, rural youth employment, marginalised children. Learn more about advocacy in general and especially focused on our own sponsors and their networks. Be inspired by other organisations: learn what works and what doesn’t. Learn how to link up advocacy in the North with programmes in the South. Learn how to measure the impact of advocacy or at least have some tools to make a good report on that.

Why an EU-CORD advocacy workshop?

EU-CORD Advocacy Five-year strategy ( ) Third strategic objective: “Achieve change in EU position on international development and humanitarian aid policies and practices, so that they respond better to the needs of people living in poverty and affected by disasters.” By 2016: The network is taking a strategic approach to its advocacy work with clear strategies in place for each advocacy area. Joint advocacy implemented to influence the EU’s decisions about the new MFF to match EU-CORD’s vision and goals. Increased capacity of members to advocate around international development and humanitarian aid issues. Not identified in the strategy: Models of advocacy Specific advocacy areas

What should the EU-CORD advocacy model look like? Why should EU-CORD be doing advocacy? How can we successfully structure and implement advocacy on this basis? What should the role of the secretariat be? What should the role of members be? How can partners and beneficiaries be involved? Discussions at General Assembly

Why? We have a story to tell and we need to tell it from a Christian perspective. Together we have more clout and visibility and may be large enough to influence. To address EU policy level. To represent the voices of beneficiaries and local partners. How? Advocacy topics need to be owned by members, reflecting their priorities. We need to look for issues we have in common, although we recognise that this is a challenge. Advocacy needs to be joined up between EU-level and Member State-level actions. It needs to be consistent with Southern partner actions. Advocacy could target European churches, supporters and member constituencies as well as governments and European institutions. Roles Members need to commit time and resources. The Secretariat should lead and inform on what the issues are. Working groups are a good idea and need to be strengthened. It is important to receive updates about what is going on. Discussions at General Assembly

To share experiences and examples of advocacy. To understand the different approaches and levels of advocacy in different member organisations. To highlight opportunities for EU-CORD advocacy. To come to an understanding of the different roles, levels of commitment and ways of working for EU-CORD advocacy. To reflect on effectiveness in advocacy. To come to some initial decisions about the future of EU-CORD advocacy: model, potential issues. Objectives