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Advocacy is an increasingly important strategy in development,
but how do you prove its impact, and ensure appropriate lessons
are learned? This week's article describes some approaches that
you may find helpful.

Do you have any "lessons learned" to exchange with other aid
workers? e-mail [email protected] or join the discussions
online at http://forum.aidworkers.net

This article is also available online at:
http://www.aidworkers.net/exchange/20031015.html
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MONITORING AND EVALUATING ADVOCACY PROGRAMMES
By Louisa Gosling

Advocacy is an essential component of rights-based programming,
focusing on building constituencies around different issues, and
working to change the broader context in which an agency works.

As with any other development activity, good planning,
monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment are essential for
good management of advocacy, for accountability, and to make
sure lessons are learned to improve practice in the short and
long term.

It is essential to define what you are trying to achieve and how
you will know whether or not you are succeeding. The findings
from monitoring and evaluation can also be used for further
advocacy purposes.

A 'MODEL OF CHANGE'

Advocacy can work at different levels and use different
approaches simultaneously. There are two broad categories:

* Attempting to influence policy directly
* Developing the capacity of others for advocacy

A 'model of change' can help to clarify how you expect the
advocacy process to bring about change in people's lives.

For example, the process of advocacy can be seen as an impact
chain:

build awareness > change policy > impact on people's lives

There are a number of frameworks available that you can use and
adapt to clarify the advocacy process in terms of intermediate
and long-term objectives, and how you will know if you are
getting there.

WHAT TO MONITOR AND EVALUATE?

It is important to assess both the process and impact. Both are
essential to allow us to modify and adapt our advocacy strategy
during implementation.

Process monitoring of advocacy activities is needed in order to
judge:
* are the techniques working?
* are people being reached and is the message understood by
targets? are the most appropriate targets and channels being
used?
* are you involving and collaborating with the relevant people,
organisations and bodies?

Impact monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment are needed
to know:
* are the objectives likely to be achieved, ie, will there
be/have there been changes on the ground?
* what more needs to be done to sustain changes?
* what unintended impacts - positive and negative - have
occurred?
* have promises of policy changes really been implemented (or
are they still only rhetoric)?
* what can be learnt for future advocacy activities?

Constant impact monitoring enables you to look for evidence of
change as you go, to assess progress in bringing about the
change, and to test whether your assumptions about the process
of change are correct.

WHO DEFINES SUCCESS?

Different stakeholders will have different views on what success
is, depending on where they are within the impact chain. To get
an overview of how successful you were, you need to solicit the
views of a range of stakeholders: for example, ultimate
beneficiaries, local people and their organisations, staff
involved, advocacy targets, journalists and outsiders.

Not all stakeholders have the same interest in telling you how
effective the campaign is. Some may deliberately misinform. For
example, companies may flatter campaigners to discourage them
from continuing a campaign. There may also be a danger of
campaigners exaggerating their success. It is therefore vital to
ensure a rigorous analysis takes place, and that evidence is
properly triangulated. This makes advocacy impact assessment
more credible, even though based on a subjective approach.

METHODS FOR MONITORING AND EVALUATING ADVOCACY

A variety of methods can be used. For example:

* Surveys can provide an overview of what was achieved.
Anonymous surveys can be useful where an organisation cannot
be open about why change is happening.
* Interviews.
* PLA techniques such as ranking are useful for assessing the
success of developing advocacy capacity among grassroots
activities.
* Video can be an effective way of conveying emotion in
evaluations, without which spirited campaigns turn into dry
reports.
* Case studies that draw on a range of techniques and that are
cross-referenced to avoid bias are a helpful way to provide
useful lessons and to present complex material. These can be
done for specific projects or institutions or groups of
beneficiaries.

Where emphasis is on development of civil society and ability to
hold decision makers accountable, methods for monitoring, review
and evaluation need to:
* be culturally appropriate
* encourage participation by children and young people
* be gender sensitive
* be developed in consultation with southern-based organisations
* emphasise values that organisations consider important in
their work.

Methodologies need to reinforce transparent and co-operative
ways of working, and strengthen the role of external agencies in
helping to create space for marginal groups to have a voice. It
is important to use a range of methods to get the information
you need, and to cross-check the information. The methods also
need to be suited to the nature of the advocacy work and provide
information that is timely and useful.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ADVOCACY

The impact of advocacy can be measured in a number of ways,
including budget monitoring to analyse the implementation of
policy change. This provides a quantitative approach,
recognising that policy change is not always implemented.

Although it would be useful, in many cases relevant baseline
data is not available to help assess impact. There is often more
emphasis on the systematic recording of evidence that comes up
in the course of the work.

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This article is excerpted from "Toolkits: a practical guide to
planning, monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment."
published by Save the Children (2003). Further details online at
http://www.scfuk.org.uk/scuk/jsp/resources/details.jsp?id=594
purchasing information from [email protected]
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YOUR SAY ...

Do you have something to add or a question to ask? How have you
planned, monitored and evaluated your advocacy programmes?
Can you share some hints and tips about impact assessment?

Email [email protected] or join the discussion online
at http://forum.aidworkers.net/messages/258/11619.html

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The Aid Workers Network is a learning community of aid workers
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Aid Workers Exchange 15-OCT-03 ISSN 1478-5137
previous issues available at http://www.aidworkers.net/exchange