1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO ADVOCACY
PROMISE ICELAND EXCHANGE JUNE 2016

2. What is advocacy?
Looking at different definitions or references to advocacy, you often find these key words
Influence, Stakeholders, Change, Fulfilment, Policy, Legislation, Practice, Structures
And, in our field of work there is often a reference to children – their rights, their lives, their wellbeing etc.

3. What is advocacy?
“Advocacy is the deliberate process, based on demonstrated evidence, to directly and indirectly influence decision makers, stakeholders and relevant audiences to support and implement actions that contribute to the fulfilment of children’s and women’s rights” (UNICEF)
“…a set of organised activities to influence government and other institutional policies and practices to achieve lasting changes for children’s lives based on the experience and knowledge of working directly with children, their families and their communities.” (Save the Children)
Here are examples of different definitions of advocacy from two of the largest advocates for children globally
But most of us here are different to these two big organisations and advocacy might not be at the centre of our activities. Today we will have an opportunity to look at the different roles of different actors, what is appropriate in terms of action for different actors and what our respectve added value is.
I will give you a brief overview of the advocacy cycle.

4. The advocacy cycle Why Plan?
Advocacy is rarely an ordered, linear process where all the rights steps happen in the right order. Advocates often operate in a chaotic environment and need to seize opportunities as they arise... At the same time, it is crucial to understand problems, gather evidence, make sure that all stakeholders move in the same direction, that there are structures to turn to when ”things happen” that help you act quickly, that there are strong messages and that there are clear processes for evaluating and monitoring activities. The advocacy strategy helps you operate, evaluate and adapt to changing and chaotic environments.
Overview of cycle

5. Standard 12 - Information sharing and external competence building
12.1 Data Collection and information sharing: Aggregated and disaggregated data/statistics is collected and shared with relevant stakeholders, including decision-makers, academia, child protection professionals, and the broader public, to create awareness about violence against children and the role of MD/IA responses, to facilitate research and to support evidence-based legislation, policy and procedures.
12.2 External competence building and outreach: The MD/IA service offers targeted action to increase competence and knowledge among professionals working for and with children, by for example organising study visits, information meetings, lectures and producing written material.
Child Safeguarding
Measures to safeguard children and to protect their privacy and data in the context of all outreach work
Ethical guidelines for media involvement
Awareness raising and Competence Building
Study visits for professionals, decision-makers, academia, media and other relevant stakeholders
Lectures, training, workshops for professionals and students
Contributions to public campaigns
Data Collection and Research
System to collect disaggregated data
Database containing disaggregated data
Contributions to research, studies, surveys and consultations
Media
Media work is a formal aspect of the service’s function and relevant staff members' job descriptions
Staff provided with opportunities for media training

6. Be clear about what you want to see or change
Problem analysis – What does our evidence say? Do we, or others have strong unambiguous evidence about problems, rights violations, underlying causes? Where and how can this be changed? Who is responsible for making changes? Where can systems, practice, etc be changes? What is the resistance?
Overall goal and specific objectives – What must stop? What must change? What are the alternative solutions? What must be in place and who should do it and by when? Are the goals SMART? Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant and Time-Bound?

7. Be clear about who has the power and responsibility to deliver change
Who are your advocacy targets and influentials? Are you sure that your target can actually help make the change you are looking for? What is their role, mandate and capacity? Which actors can help you influence those with key responsibility to deliver change? In what way? We will look closer at this when we move into EU territory.
Who are the other stakeholders and how can build strength by creating alliances? How can those who are neutral or undecided become your supporters? Do you need to broaden up your advocacy to campaigning?

8. Be clear about how you are going to achieve your goals and objectives
What action and activities should you take? What is the most strategic path towards achieving your goals and objectives? What should you be doing to influence your advocacy targets? What is most appropriate ”tactic” depending on which actor you target? Formal or informal advocacy?
Are there specific opportunities that you need to be aware of and map? What is the timing of a particular decision-making process? When do different actors need to deliver in order not to miss opportunities?
What resources do you have for advocacy – very important to ensure that the plans do not demand more resources than you have. Relevant also in terms of a network – check what resources your members have before planning regional advocacy.

9. Is your plan working?
Achieving your goals might require a sustained, long term effort. At different stages of your advocacy strategy you need to see if your plan is working and decide what you want to keep doing, what you want to change in your plan or what you need to stop doing or using as an advocacy tool.
You therefore need to capture learnings from your work – what worked really well for this action might be useful for another strategy. And you might not want to try, or at least adapt, things that went wrong in the context of other campaigns or advocacy efforts.
You also want to ensure that you build on previous achievements and address gaps. Perhaps you identified an issue that you hadn’t foreseen in your initial planning that now becomes the key priority of your advocacy strategy or generates a whole new action? Responding to a particular issue might also need to be followed up by working towards changes in policy, legislation and practice.
It is important that the learnings are harnessed and communicated with others. With staff turnover, important knowledge of lessons learnt, key actors, successful engagements, great tools etc might be lost.

10. Applying the advocacy cycle to MD/IA Services
Introduction to PROMISE Advocacy Brief
Advocating for MD/IA Services - Workshops
With this general overview, we will now look more closely at advocacy for MD/IA services. We will begin with an introduction to the PROMISE advocacy brief and then we will break out in working groups to discuss advocacy for MD/IA services.