7.1 Common advocacy themes in emergencies.

• Humanitarian access: Gaining access to populations affected by a crisis is a paramount consideration for humanitarian action. Obstacles to such access may be rooted in the actions and decisions of policymakers, and may therefore require an advocacy response.
• Protection: CARE recognises protection as a cross-cutting theme in its humanitarian response (see Chapter 31 Protection). Advocacy can be a strategy to raise the protection needs of vulnerable people with policymakers.
• Humanitarian space: Safeguarding the impartial and non-partisan nature of relief efforts is an increasingly important advocacy concern, especially because it is linked directly to the safety of humanitarian personnel (see Chapter 38 Humanitarian space, and Chapter 1.2 Civil-military relations).
• Health, food security, shelter and other emergency programme areas also give rise to priorities for which an advocacy response may be necessary.

Adequate funding: Shortfalls in humanitarian funding can cripple an emergency response effort. Advocacy can be used to ensure that key policymakers prioritise the emergency, including allocating sufficient resources. That said, this is different from fundraising directly on behalf of CARE.