Many people tend to immediately associate the term advocacy with media campaigning, high profile legal challenges, or the street-based activism of petitions, posters, and demonstrations. This is because these are the most visible actions of actors attempting to make or force policy change. However, this represents only one piece of the puzzle, and in order to further situate the process of policy advocacy and develop and define concepts that are commonly associated with the process, in this section we look at the typical roles different types of organizations (both visible and less so) tend to play in conducting their advocacy.
Policy advocacy includes other approaches less visible then media campaining and public activisim.
The Overseas Development Institute produced a very useful way of illustrating these differences by mapping the typical advocacy activities of different NGO actors on a graph covering two dimensions of the advocacy process:1
- Whether an organization takes a cooperative to confrontational approach to their advocacy, that is, whether they are “whispering to or shouting at government.”2
- Whether their advocacy messages are more evidence-based or more interest/value-based.
Our adaptation of the diagram is included below as Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The advocacy roles of different types of NGOs
Taking the figure one quadrant at a time:
A. Advising — think tanks (for example, the European Council on Foreign Relations) or researchers are commissioned by a client to investigate a certain policy question or problem. This usually entails working with those in authority and producing new empirical research to assist them in making a policy decision. Even when commissioned, there is still an advocacy process of selling the ideas developed through the research to the client, although the hurdles are obviously lower than working from the outside.
B. Media campaigning — many advocacy organizations decide to include a public dimension to their campaign as they feel some type of public or external pressure on decisionmakers is required to achieve results. This type of approach is commonly used by watchdog organizations that monitor government action, for example, Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, or Transparency International.
C. Lobbying — face-to-face meetings with decisionmakers or influential people a commonly used approach for many organizations that are defending the interests of a certain group of people, such as business (for example, the American Chambers of Commerce Abroad), professional or community associations, or unions. These types of organizations tend to have ready access to powerful people and focus their efforts on being present and visible during government and public discussions concerning their interests.
D. Activism — petitions, public demonstrations, posters, and leaflet dissemination are common approaches used by organizations that promote a certain value set, for example, environmentalism in the case of Greenpeace, or have a defined constituency and represent or provide a service to a group of people who are not adequately included within government social service provision like the victims of domestic violence or refugees. The main work of the latter group centers on providing a service to their constituency, but they also have a policy advocacy function.
However, in conducting an actual advocacy campaign, most organizations do not in fact fit neatly into one quadrant on the figure. To illustrate this, we have plotted the common advocacy roles of a think tank we are familiar with: the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). ECFR, as an international think tank, focuses on achieving impact on European foreign policy through direct advocacy efforts in collaboration with its many partners. The type of advocacy approach used by ECFR is mostly inside-track evidence-based supported by publication, discussion, conferences, and lobbying, but the value dimension is also there with what they call “European values” dominating their advocacy messages. ECFR has no problem giving advice to European institutions, governments, and partners willing to listen; nevertheless, ECFR often goes to the public to pressure governments and so media campaigning is a valid option. However, ECFR advocacy efforts do not include street protests or petitioning.3
An organization usually uses multiple approaches to policy advocacy.
The key lesson to be drawn for advocacy actors from such a mapping exercise is that while it is evident that organizations use multiple approaches to their advocacy efforts, they are centered around the strengths and capacities of the organization itself for example, think tanks tend to focus on the production of quality research and working on the inside track as they don’t normally have the resources or constituency to do big public media campaigns.4 In addition, going outside a normal advocacy role can also present a strategic risk in some cases, that is, think tanks that publicly criticize partners are unlikely to receive research commissions from them in the near future. Most organizations with an advocacy focus would like to survive beyond a single campaign, and hence—considering the potential effects of a particular advocacy effort in terms of benefits or losses of funding—support, access, and reputation is crucial.5 Such considerations are often one reason to build coalitions where different types of organizations will combine capacities and share the risks a policy advocacy push. Such longer-term thinking about your role as an advocate is crucial and we will return to this in Chapter 6.
Organizations should adopt advocacy approaches that fit their capacities.
Advocacy planning checklist
Think of your organization in relation to Figure 1:
- What type of organization do you work for?
- What are your strengths as an advocacy organization?
- What approaches do you normally take to advocacy?
- How effective has this approach been to date?
- How could you adjust these approaches to maximize your influence?