Many women’s rights NGOs around the world are working
to advocate for the protection of women from all forms of gender-based
violence. Advocacy refers to a process, initiated by citizens
or groups of citizens, such as non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), to bring about change. Two broad types of advocacy can
be distinguished: individual advocacy and systems change advocacy.
Individual advocacy focuses on changing the situation for an individual
and protecting her rights. Systems advocacy refers to efforts
to change policy and practice at the local, national or international
level, to change the situation for groups of individuals who share
similar problems. While systems advocacy works to improve the
system to the benefit of individuals, it is a long-term
approach to problem solving requiring sustained effort. This
section of the website discusses advocacy tools for systems change.
All effective advocacy strategies will aim to affect change
at various levels- including increasing community awareness of
the issue, influencing law and policy making and improving the
government response to violence against women.
Because systems advocacy aims to affect long-term social
change, it is generally considered a process that addresses strategic
needs, in contrast to addressing the immediate and day-to-day
needs of victims. At the same time, however, advocacy is also
a tool that is both influenced by practical needs and can be used
in conjunction with practical activities. An effective strategy
to address violence against women should incorporate both practical
and strategic activities, and many NGO actions function on both
of these levels simultaneously. In planning a strategy, it may
be useful to review a broader discussion of the interplay between
strategic and practical needs in the context of gender-based violence
elsewhere on this website.
This website takes a human rights approach to gender-based
violence, which means that the advocacy strategies included here
aim to improve respect for and the protection of women’s
human rights. The manual Women’s Human Rights Step by
Step defines the main goals of women’s human rights
advocacy as the following:
To increase the understanding of human rights to include
abuses suffered predominantly by women;
To expand the scope of State responsibility for protection
of women’s human rights in both the public and private
To improve the effectiveness of the human rights
system at the national and international level to both enforce
women’s human rights and also to hold abusers accountable.
Within the broad human rights framework, advocacy initiatives
vary and should be reflective of specific country conditions.
Advocacy initiatives under the human rights perspective, however,
tend to focus on improving the human rights system at all levels,
meaning from local government institutions up to intergovernmental
organizations, such as the United Nations.
An effective advocacy initiative or strategy requires organization,
strategizing, information gathering, coalition building and action.
The following are brief guidelines for advocates in developing
an advocacy strategy, adapted in part from Women’s Human
Rights Step by Step, Women Law & Development International
and Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project (1997).
NGOs and advocates must begin with an identifiable issue
around which they want to promote change. While advocates must
understand the problem in all its complexity, an effective advocacy
strategy should be focused on well-defined issue(s) that can be
addressed and resolved. In identifying the issue to be addressed,
advocates should ask the following questions: What are the priorities?
What is the most important thing to accomplish? What is the most
likely to succeed?
In identifying an issue to be addressed, advocates should
be informed by the experiences of their constituents- women who
have been victims of violence. Women’s real-life experiences
will both determine the nature of the problem and the potential
solution(s). Advocates should understand the term ‘constituents’
in its broadest sense, meaning women of both the majority and
minority cultures. Likewise, advocates must be aware that their
constituents’ experiences of violence are influenced by
a number of variables, such as their race, ethnicity, socio- economic
class or sexual orientation or whether they are disabled or have
refugee status. An advocacy strategy should, therefore, incorporate
the varying needs of the constituents.
After deciding the issues to address, the next step is
to analyze whether any research is needed. Advocates should analyze
the strategies and work of other NGOs in their own and other countries
and decide what additional information is necessary.
In order to define a position and an outcome, advocates
must be thoroughly familiar with the issue or concern, based on
fulfilling the steps above. It is also important for advocates
to keep in mind that the key targets of the advocacy initiatives
will very likely not understand the issues as well as the advocates
do themselves. This is especially true when the advocacy strategies
address violence against women, which historically has received
little attention from government bodies. It is important for
advocates to be able to communicate the desired change clearly,
articulate why the specific change is required and to respond
to questions or proposals that are not in accord with the desired
In defining the desired outcome, advocates should also discuss
potential areas of compromise and outline issues that are not
negotiable. Advocates must be willing to abandon a strategy if
the only way to achieve a part of the plan is to compromise on
the non-negotiable issues.
Advocates should next develop a strategy that
includes the goals, the target(s), the actions to be taken and
who will complete the specified tasks. Within the general framework
of promoting women’s human rights, there are a number of
distinct activities that can be undertaken, all of which are part
of an advocacy strategy. An effective advocacy strategy may combine
a number of activities over a period of time.
For example, community education and awareness-raising
about a particular issue of violence against women may be an appropriate
first step in gaining allies before a more targeting activity
is undertaken. Community education, however, can also accompany
legal reform initiatives in order to gain popular support for
legal change. Lobbying and legal reform may be required before
test cases can be litigated in national forums. On the other
hand, a possible first step before attempting legal reform is
to identify breakdowns within the legal system through human rights
documentation and reporting on a State’s failures to protect
women from violence. Finally, women’s
human rights training can be employed as a general awareness-raising
technique (for example in NGOs, among professionals and in schools
and universities) or can be used to target a specific group with
the goal to change the way that they respond to cases of violence
against women in their profession.
One aspect of articulating an advocacy strategy,
as discussed above, is to evaluate proposed actions for potential
negative repercussions. Because the potential risks to constituents
are high in cases of gender-based violence, however, it may be
useful to consider this assessment as a separate step in developing
an overall advocacy strategy. In the case of individual advocacy
initiatives, it is imperative that advocates ensure victim safety,
maintain confidentiality and respect the decision making process
of the victim. Since systems change advocacy is often very closely
linked with an NGOs individual advocacy activities,
it is also important that advocates apply the same evaluation
standards to all of their work. In order to carry out an effective
evaluation, it may be helpful to elicit comments and feedback
from the constituents about the proposed advocacy actions.
Next, advocates should identify allies in the
community as well as potential opponents. It may also be useful
for advocates to identify NGOs in other communities or countries
that have undertaken a similar advocacy strategy. These NGOs
can provide value information about their experiences and may
also be instrumental in influencing the government response.
For the reason mentioned above, that advocates
often have much more information about a particular violence issue
that either the general public policymakers or even possible allies,
an NGO should develop an education plan that will provide needed
information about the problem or concern, that will explain the
desired outcome, that will address potential objections to change
and that will identify potential sources of support.
The final stage is to undertake advocacy around the chosen
issue or concern.
The human rights approach focuses on systems change and,
therefore, targets the human rights/legal system. While maintaining
a focus on improving the human rights system, it is also important
to be aware of other actors and institutions that may play a key
role in combating violence against women. Cultural and societal
specifics may necessitate an approach that addresses a variety
of actors outside of the legal system, such as healthcare providers,
trade union representatives, religious leaders and community organizations,
for example. A comprehensive advocacy strategy may, therefore,
target a variety of actors and institutions.