What do you think are the challenges faced by

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP 197 General Guide to Practical Advocacy Skills Advocacy is active espousal. It is aimed at gaining support for a cause or goal and at drawing participation in a general movement or in particular activities. It is the generation of awareness, interest and concern around an issue, then the mobilization of people for a desired action on the issue. Advocacy of legislative or policy, judicial, executive or administrative action on an issue usu- ally entails a rather long, sustained and multi-faceted campaign. For it to be effective, it should be well planned.

I. CONSIDERATIONS IN PLANNING A CAMPAIGN

A. Determine whether you have complete informaion on the issue. If you have in- formaion gaps, ill them. B. The irst target of your advocacy work should be the communiies afected by the issue. You therefore need to: 1. Identify exactly who these communities are. 2. Find out whether they are even aware of the issue. 3. If they are aware, find out whether they have sufficient and accurate information and un- derstanding of the issue. 4. Find out what they think, how they feel about it, and whether they can be mobilized to act on it.

C. Gauge the Poliical Situaion:

1. Government is not monolithic. Even if the issue is a judicial decision, a law, a policy or its implementation, or a government program or project, it is possible that members of the judi- ciary, legislature, administration or bureaucracy, or perhaps local government units, are against it. You therefore need to find out how different people in government stand on the issue. Deter- mine which government offices your campaign should address and which government officials would likely be your allies, which of them your adversaries. 2. Also determine how much political space is open to you, in your prospective conduct of a campaign. Gauge whether you should prepare for repressive action on the part of the state. D. Assess media coverage and gauge public awareness of the issue. Also gauge what kind of informaion and educaion materials will be most efecive in atracing and sustaining the atenion of the public.