2. Critical steps for advocacy

Checklist

• Consider the range of advocacy approaches that could help achieve CARE’s programme goals, and how the complement operational approaches.
• Use advocacy as one of the options that CARE has to promote a rights-based response to the emergency.
• Develop a basic understanding of key international and regional legal frameworks that underpin rights-based humanitarian advocacy.
• Coordinate with the various actors in CARE International to activate support for CO-level advocacy actions and to coordinate global level advocacy initiatives.
• Undertake a process of problems identification and prioritisation to determine what the most important issues are that could be addressed through advocacy.
• Apply basic criteria and risk analysis to emerging issues to determine whether advocacy is an appropriate and feasible response, and ensure that potential benefits outweigh risks.
• Develop an advocacy strategy that is appropriate to the emergency context. This may be simplified in an acute crisis, or more comprehensive in a protracted crisis.
• Ensure that the advocacy strategy is based on a sound analysis of the problem.
• Develop a reliable base of information.
• Identify clear goals and objectives for the advocacy strategy, which outline the specific policy changes that are sought.
• Analyse and identify the key target audiences of CARE’s advocacy strategy.
• Identify allies and opponents.
• Define key messages, tools and actions to be used.
• Plan the timing of the strategy carefully to take advantage of key events and opportunities to influence the target audience.
• Identify and secure human and financial resources required to implement the strategy.
• Include specific actions to mitigate and manage risks in the advocacy strategy.
• Develop monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to track progress and impacts.