4. Advocacy Planning Framework (APF) — The way into the process

For any policy advocate, as the most basic element of trying to be influential, you have to engage the key actors in the target decision-making process. Knowing exactly who to engage, as well as when, where, and how to get involved, can make the difference between success and failure in an advocacy effort.¹ Building on an initial consideration of the core strategic focus questions outlined in Chapter 3, looking to find a way into the process is the next major point when leaving the one-way delivery of research or supply-side approach and beginning to consider the real and rather messy challenges of truly having policy influence.

The top and most important of the circles in the APF is called the “way into the process.” Through this circle, advocates map out and consider the target decision-making process, people, and thinking in relation to the advocacy effort they are planning. This is the major starting point in the detailed part of the APF mapping and planning process as most other advocacy planning decisions will be guided and influenced by the nature of the opportunities and challenges you map out in this circle. It basically sets the scene and points you in the right direction by guiding you in planning how to bring what you have learned from research into a target decision-making process. One recent training participant nicely summarized this challenge: “We need to understand the players and the playing field.”

In this chapter, we provide an overview of the way into the process circle and then develop the six key areas of mapping and planning that together constitute the basis for a detailed picture of the policy landscape. In each of these key areas, we illustrate the key questions and advocacy lessons through the four cases studies (introduced in section 3.1) and close each sub-section with a set of basic planning questions to help in your own planning.