The decisions you have made in working through the APF tool will point you in one of two directions as a next step: move forward or step back. Taking each in turn:
Move forward to elaborate a detailed action plan, if you can complete the APF process.
If you have been able to complete all levels of planning in the APF tool and come up with firm plans for your first or next wave of advocacy, this indicates that you are in a position to move forward towards operationalizing your advocacy strategy. The word “framework” from APF is important in indicating the stage of development of your advocacy strategy and what you still have to do before starting your advocacy campaign. You have a framework and the basis of your overall strategy and you have chosen your way into the process, messengers and support, target audiences, messages, and set of activities and communication tools. What you are missing is an action plan detailing who will do what and when, how everything will be prepared and paid for, and how and when you will evaluate your achievements as you go through the process. Many resources exist on developing such detailed action plans for policy advocacy.1
APF gives you a focused strategy, but not a detailed action plan.
Step back into the research, analysis, or planning process if the APF process highlights key gaps or needs.
Going through the planning process using APF tool can also identify gaps in multiple areas, that is, data gaps, incomplete analysis, resource or capacity gaps, need for more insight into policymaking practices and players involved, or need for more consultation with partners to negotiate roles in the implementation of the advocacy campaign. Hence, the APF helps to tell you what you don’t know as well as what you do know! As a result, you may decide to try to fill these identified gaps before moving on to an action plan.
After completing the APF, decide whether to develop an action plan or do more planning and analysis.
The final two pieces of advice are centered on reflection and review.
Revisit your original advocacy strategy after each wave of your advocacy campaign.
Given that you are initiating and steering a process of ongoing dialogue and negotiation, it is only natural that you will need to review your strategy and plan as you implement the strategy to see where and how adaptations or tweaking are needed to keep your advocacy efforts on track. After the first wave of engaging in advocacy, communicating messages and engaging key audiences through targeted activities and receiving their response, you will learn many new things, such as, for example, more about the policymaking process from the actual experience of discussing and arguing your ideas and proposals with key players as well as the level of comprehensibility of the messages you’ve developed so far. Revisiting how you made your decisions and their effectiveness as you implement your advocacy may provide useful insights for the next wave of your campaign. Your advocacy strategy is not fixed in stone and the APF is not just designed for advance planning and decisionmaking, but also for the crucial dimensions of revisiting and adapting.
Reflect on and update your strategy after each wave of advocacy.
Reflect on your use of the APF tool
To help in future advocacy planning work, we recommend taking time to reflect on your experience using the APF tool. The checklist below is designed to evaluate different aspects of your experience to determine what worked well and what could be improved to make the planning process more effective and efficient next time round.
APF reflection checklist:
Think about the APF planning process you just completed:
- Was the APF tool useful in your advocacy planning process? In what way?
- Did using the APF yield the results in terms of decisions and detail in forming an effective basis for your advocacy strategy?
- Was the timing right for doing the mapping and planning process? Was it too early or too late?
- Which aspects of planning using the APF tool were most challenging and which were most productive?
- What would you do differently next time (in terms of set up, people involved, using the tool, time allocated, facilitation)?
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For example, Amnesty International 1997, International HIV/AIDS Alliance 2002, Sprechmann and Pelton 2001,
USAID 2002. ↩︎