Advocacy & Partnership

Nafula Wafula: Advocacy & Partnership

Nafula Wafula is the Vice chairperson Policy and advocacy, Commonwealth Youth Council and Executive Director Tunawiri- Grassroots Gender Justice Network

 What is a) Advocacy?  b) Partnership?

Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Partnerships, on the other hand are the deliberate process of identifying organizations or institutions with which you can work towards achieving a particular goal. Partnerships can be two or more organizations and they can also be as big as networks, coalitions, movements.

Each of these mean different things depending on the purpose of the said partnerships; Coalitions are often temporary and formed for combined actions and with a particular and common goal in mind. Networks don't necessarily have a particular time and they can bring together diverse stakeholders. The goals can also be diverse but often organizations have commonalities in terms of objectives or programs etc.

What is the Importance of partnerships in advocacy?

Advocacy is a process, usually a long and tedious one. It involves systems change, and anything involving this requires a lot of planning and sometimes resources. The advocacy process in itself includes key steps like stakeholder mapping, identifying your allies, etc. Advocacy cannot be a solitary journey.

Having strong partners in advocacy ensures that each party is working based on their core strength, ensures that the voice is stronger and build our chances at having a successful campaign.It is important to ensure that the partners we bring on board are aligned to our vision, and that MOUs are created that cater to everyone's role and responsibilities; especially where money is involved. Also ensuring that the partners are all able to get sufficient ownership and visibility

What should be the guiding principles when seeking partnerships?

Ensure that there is a common goal or agenda that you are working towards, ensure that the terms of the partnership are clear; particularly as it pertains to roles and responsibilities, ensure that any financial responsibility is clear; and that if funding is offered on the basis of a partnership. It should be clear who is managing the funds and how their utilized; Transparency is key and finally ensure that there are good and open communication channels between partners

What are the tools for Advocacy?

Research aimed at clarifying public issues, weighing the merits of various options, and firming up the case for the solutions that work best came up with:

Constituency organizing and mobilization — that is, rallying people with a stake in the issue, helping them formulate and express their views, and supporting organizations and projects that help constituents advance those views in the public arena; Making current advocates more effective through general support, specialized training, networking with other advocates, and organizational development in areas relevant to advocacy, such as communications and information management; Forming and sustaining coalitions among constituency groups, researchers, experts in communications and public policy, and other groups that can help advance public debate; Using media to reach the right audiences, including two major branches of media strategy: reaching out to news organizations to generate coverage of the topic, and producing one’s own publications, advertisements, videos, events, and other broad outreach material; Litigation on issues of fundamental law or justice, especially in cases where existing policy is not being properly applied or the situation is urgent, as with constitutional issues; Direct approach to policy makers — a crucially important activity that may sound like “lobbying,” but actually runs into that legal limitation only in certain narrowly defined circumstances that are easy to avoid.

How does one build advocacy partnerships?

The first step is to understand what your advocacy campaign is. What is the issue, what are your questions, why is it a problem, how will your questions resolve the problem, who do you need for you to achieve your mission, who are potential 'enemies of progress?’

Then, as you think through your entire strategy, think of the stakeholders you need on board. Those are your partners. It could be that they bring something you don't have (resources, skills, clout etc.), identify this. Remember to consider what each party is getting from being a part of the campaign.Organizational priorities sometimes trump partnership priorities / goals. So the more your advocacy goal fits in to each of the partners' deliverables, the more commitment you get from them.

Identify who your key messenger is. Sometimes, particularly in partnerships where organizations are unequal in size ( e.g. NGOs partnering with grassroots organizations in campaigns), the smaller organizations tend to have their voices and efforts 'swallowed'. Be conscious of this. Ensure you understand the dynamics of the campaign and understand who would be the best person to carry the message. We can't all be on the frontline. A good example is, a majority male organization in a menstrual health campaign can be a strong ally, but you will lose people of they are the key messenger.

Why is building partnerships Important for Organizations growth?

Donors are angling more towards funding innovative partnerships than individual organizations. Partnerships also increase our reach and if done well, profile and visibility. Our work diversifies further by plugging in different stakeholders, particularly if it is a multi-sector. We build stronger campaigns, have stronger voices and more chances to be able to achieve our advocacy and organizational goals. They also save costs and reduce duplication of efforts because we focus on what we are best at as organizationsand, the community benefits.

Why is advocacy important in a social development organization?

We cannot work independent of advocacy really. Even if our work is purely programmatic, we rely too much on the system to work independent of it. We need to engage with government (national or local or school administration. Whatever form of authority within which our beneficiaries are under) Engagement is a process. We have meetings, we lobby, we mobilize and eventually when it seems as if the system will not respond to our needs, we engage in direct and indirect action. (E.g. protests, sit- ins etc. These too are tools) our beneficiaries are subjects of a system; A government, an administration etc. our work should therefore be about amplifying their voices so they are truly self sufficient.

Advocacy is sometimes confused with insightment, how do we do advocacy without being labeled as people who are channeling insights?

Activism is often only viewed through the lens of protests and note that protests are not wrong. They can be very powerful. But protests have been criminalized many ways in Kenya. This leads to the constant expectation of teargas. Critiquing or tweeting anything that is viewed as being too critical might lead to folks knocking down your door after curfew and you getting charged with 'digital piracy'. That said, it is a perception issue. Know your facts, communicate effectively. Be fearless and stand by what you believe. There's always going to be people that find your tactics inciting. Also learn advocacy strategizing and be deliberate about your messaging.

Most of the youths lack knowledge about advocacy, so what are the strategies put in place to involve the youths in advocacy and partnership in Kenya specifically?

Use methods that youth relate to. Social media, youth friendly mainstream media, target spaces youth occupy and engage in existing processes e.g. budget advocacy in your counties etc.

Why is it important to make partners visible?

It is important for you to ensure you maintain visibility even in a partnership. Sometimes when the power Dynamics in partnerships are severely skewed, e g NGOS and CBOs in one movement, actions are often attributed to the larger organizations even when they are really a partnership effort. In such cases, I believe it is important that the smaller organizations own their role and their successes and communicate effectively to ensure they and their efforts are not rendered invisible, and larger organizations should ensure that they credit and highlight the smaller members in the partnership and acknowledge their efforts. Ethics dictate as well.

How does one ensure visibility then?

Communication; Own the successes, use the photos, add your logo, send newsletters and highlight on your social and website the key role you play in the partnership.

Elaborate on some of the fears organizations have that make them not to enter into partnership anymore

One is the invisibility of grassroots organizations amongst bigger organizations where partnerships are involved. The smaller organizations do the labor, organize, etc. The larger organizations own the narrative, lack of clarity of roles leading to internal disagreement, lack of clear leadership, Lack of an understanding of members' expectations, Lack of effective communication and honesty and lastly, members prioritizing their individual organizational goals over the partnership goals. For instance, I've heard of cases where in a partnership, one member went behind the others' back to individually propose to the donor and complain about the partners.