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Advocacy

A favorable policy environment is essential to the success of projects that aim to improve hygiene, sanitation, and water supply in schools. Political commitment to children's education and health creates an environment that is conducive to implementing, operating, and maintaining such projects and that enables small-scale pilot projects to scale up effectively. Without political commitment and the resulting favorable policies, many school hygiene, sanitation, and water projects remain highly subsidized small-scale interventions that never outgrow the pilot character with which they were set up.

Advocacy and information sharing can be important tools to build political commitment that can help national and local governments put priorities and policies in place as well as change political attitudes and mobilize activities for hygiene, sanitation and water in schools. Advocacy for school hygiene, sanitation, and water projects and programs should illustrate the links among health, education, and water and sanitation services and outline the ways in which such projects can benefit students, school staff, families, communities, and countries.

Experience with these projects and programs has shown that they can contribute significantly to development. Specifically, school hygiene, sanitation, and water supply projects have produced the following outcomes:

• Led to improved health, nutritional status, and learning performance
• Contributed to increased school enrollment and attendance, particularly for girls
• Led to sustained improvements in hygiene and sanitation practices because behaviors and skills learned in schools can continue over a lifetime
• Improved hygiene and sanitation practices in the community

Building Political Commitment

Advocacy in the context of hygiene, sanitation, and water supply in schools is essential but challenging. When setting priorities for attention, both national and local governments tend to focus first on large projects in which many direct interests are at stake. They are less likely to devote attention to school hygiene, sanitation, and water projects because most of these are small-scale interventions that focus on changing hygiene behavior and require only low cost investments. However, the long term sustainability of such school projects depends on political commitment to their success.

Political commitment at both the national and the local level is built through an overall communication strategy that incorporates:

• Advocacy
• Social mobilization
• Program communication

Figure 1 illustrates the relationships among these three components within the wider continuum of communication processes.

Figure 1. Communication Continuum for Building Political Commitment

Source: McKee 1992

Advocacy is an important tool for building political commitment and helping national and local governments put priorities and policies in place. Advocacy is the action of presenting an argument in order to gain commitment from political and social leaders and educate a society about a particular issue. Advocacy involves selecting and organizing information to create a convincing argument and then delivering the argument through various interpersonal and media channels.

Advocacy has four dimensions:

• Policy dimension: changes in policy, attitudes, practices, programs, and direction of resource allocation
• Civil society dimension: strengthening the capacity and power of civil society so that citizens can play effective roles in policymaking and decisionmaking
• Democratic space dimension: improving the accountability of those who lead and govern, and increasing the legitimacy of civil society participation in policymaking and decisionmaking
• Individual gain dimension: improving people's material gains in terms of quality of life, as well as expanding their awareness of themselves as citizens with rights and entitlements and the responsibility to act on them

Social mobilization is the process of bringing together allies from various sectors to raise awareness of and demand for a particular development program or policy change. The process mobilizes partners at different levels in society to assist in the delivery of resources and services, to strengthen community participation for sustainability and self-reliance, and to bring about transparent and accountable decisionmaking. Social mobilization forms a solid basis for advocacy and efficient program communication.

Program communication is the process of identifying, segmenting, and targeting specific groups and audiences with particular strategies, messages, or training programs. Communication is conveyed through various mass media and interpersonal channels, both traditional and non-traditional. Effective program communication is a dialogue in which senders and receivers of information interact on an equal footing and the interchange of knowledge and experience leads to mutual discovery. During effective program communication, planners, experts, and field workers both listen to people's concerns, needs, and suggestions and provide information about project possibilities.

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Identifying Stakeholders in the Advocacy Process

As part of a larger process that also includes program communication and social mobilization, advocacy relies on identification of all stakeholders and definition of the roles that they can and do play. The stakeholders in hygiene, sanitation, and water supply projects for schools include those who use them, those who are indirectly affected by them, those who implement them, and those who pay for them.

Schools, teachers, and children
As the key users, teachers and children are the primary stakeholders in the provision of hygiene, sanitation, and water in schools. They are generally seen as the beneficiaries of advocacy efforts, but sometimes will also be the key decisionmakers when major decisions on practical implementation must be made.

Parents, family, and communities
Families and communities are secondary stakeholders because they benefit indirectly from improved children's hygiene skills and hygienic school environment. Families and communities may at times also be key influences as voters in general and local elections and as interest groups able to wield political power. A community is rarely a homogeneous stakeholder group, however; within any community there will be different groups of stakeholders (such as poor versus non-poor) with different perspectives on issues relating to hygiene, sanitation, and water supply in schools.

Local government
Local government officials may be keen to see hygienic conditions and water supply and sanitation facilities in schools improve. On the other hand, they often have inadequate budgets to provide the services, and funding may well be reduced by corruption and other constraints. In some cases, officials from one government department may be able to influence those in another department, as well as being advocacy targets themselves.

National government
National government officials, as policy makers, are often key advocacy targets, but some may also be influences or even allies on a particular issue. As with local government, some departments may be able to exert influence (or even power) over others; for example, the Finance Ministry may be able to affect the policy of another ministry through its influence over budget allocations.

Civil society
NGOs and other civil society groups, as implementers of hygiene, sanitation, and water supply projects in schools, may be partners in advocacy initiatives, or may be influences, providing examples of good practice and the working out of policy alternatives. International NGOs sometimes have a key opportunity to influence donors and other international organizations and can thus be strategic allies or influences. NGOs may themselves also be the targets of advocacy for better practice or policy in their role as donors or as operational practitioners.

The private sector
The role of private water companies is increasing around the world, as the privatization of water supply and sanitation services becomes more common. On issues of privatization, they are likely to be advocacy targets or even adversaries; however, on other water supply-related issues, water companies, in particular the international ones, may act as influences in relation to national governments. Other private sector organizations such as soap providers, domestic water companies, artisans and artisan associations, and consultants may be influences, allies, or targets in the advocacy process.

International donors and multilateral organizations
International donors and multilateral agencies have an influential role to play in the development of hygiene education, water and sanitation policy. As key funders of national government programs, they are in a position to impose criteria on national government development policy, including hygiene, sanitation, and water supply in schools. They may therefore be both influences and advocacy targets themselves.

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Creating an Advocacy Strategy

An effective advocacy strategy involves as many stakeholders as possible and lays the groundwork for advocacy through research into the needs and wishes of the community and the individuals within it. Table 1 outlines the steps to follow in creating an advocacy strategy.

When developing an advocacy campaign, remember these key points:

• Link advocacy and communication posters, pamphlets, and videos to a strategic communication plan.
• Only produce materials as part of a campaign.
• Pre-test messages, posters, pamphlets, and pictures with a select group of target consumers.
• Develop a plan for measuring the impact of advocacy efforts.

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Using Advocacy Tools

An effective advocacy process employs a variety of tools and methods to accomplish its goals, selecting those that are most appropriate to the culture and the situation. Using multiple tools increases the likelihood that the message will be heard and absorbed by the target audience. Advocacy methods include the following common tools:

• Meetings: Meetings are a key tool for gathering and conveying information, developing motivation, and encouraging participation. Meetings are often used as part or the start of a lobbying strategy.
• Lobbying: Lobbying aims to influence the policy process by working closely with individuals in political and government offices.
• Negotiation or finding the middle ground: This type of interaction helps two or more interest groups reach a common position from different sides of a debate. It may be carried out on a one-to-one basis, or through a meeting between several representatives of each side.
• Project visits: Project visits encourage government or other stakeholders to support or select a specific type of project or approach by providing positive examples. Project visits can be very effective in convincing decisionmakers, and also have the advantage of providing opportunities for school staff and children to speak on their own behalf. However, only a limited number of people can take part in a project visit, and it requires a minimum commitment of time and interest on the part of the decisionmakers.
• Reports: A detailed and thorough report can be a basic tool of advocacy planning. However, information from a report is usually not directly usable in an advocacy campaign; it must be tailored to the audience for which it is intended.
• Letters: Letter writing is best used as a support for other tools, for example to raise an issue with the advocacy target prior to requesting a meeting. Because public figures receive many letters, an effective letter is based on research that ensures that it targets the right audience in the most appropriate way.
• Leaflets and posters: Leaflets and posters are effective only if the target will read or notice them. They should be attractive and present a limited amount of text, showing what can be done about the issue or problem addressed.
• Drama and video: Drama provides an opportunity to present facts and issues in an entertaining, culturally sensitive, and accessible way. In many societies, drama is a form of indigenous communication through which people can comfortably express their views. If the target audience is too large to reach with drama, video shows can be an appropriate alternative.
• Mass media: Television, radio, and print media play a significant part in advocacy, both by influencing policymakers directly and by changing public opinion on an issue. Therefore they can be both influences and advocacy tools.
• E-mail/Internet: Electronic technology provides an efficient way to contact a large number of people quickly and cheaply. It is a less formal method of communication than a written letter. Items posted on the Internet will only be seen by people who have Internet access and regularly browse the Web. However, these audiences provide great potential for interaction through email or on-line forums, so that greater participation and debate can be achieved.

Each method or tool has advantages and disadvantages in terms of its cost effectiveness and its potential to reach a large number of people. Table 2 summarizes in a simple way some of the pros and cons of various methods, while recognizing that the value of most methods depends on the manner and context in which they are used.

Source Burke 1999

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