Posts filed under ‘Advocacy evaluation’
Training course on advocacy evaluation, London UK
Here is an interesting two day training course on advocacy evaluation taking place in London in May, September & November 2014:
“Over two days this new course takes participants on a journey through the advocacy evaluation landscape. The course begins by highlighting the unique challenges faced in advocacy evaluation, supporting participants to understand which approaches, methods and tools will work best for their contexts and in assessing the impact of their work. Participants will be given a useful monitoring and evaluation framework to help design their evaluation plans, and through group work, have the opportunity to experiment with a range of unique advocacy data collection tools”
Advocacy M&E: examples from Global Witness, Save, Amnesty and CDKN
Below are some useful examples – presentation posters – of how leading NGOs are tackling advocacy monitoring and evaluation:
Developing a Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL) System for Global Witness. Jenny Ross (Consultant and INTRAC Associate) and Gavin Hayman (Global Witness)
http://www.intrac.org/data/files/NGO_Forum_2013/Jenny_Ross_Global_Witness_-_final.pdf
Tracking advocacy efforts: Save the Children’s Advocacy MonitoringTool. Save the Children
http://www.intrac.org/data/files/NGO_Forum_2013/Save_the_Children_-_final.pdf
Supporting international climate negotiators: a monitoring and evaluation framework. Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN)
http://www.intrac.org/data/files/Afternoon/CDKN_-_final.pdf
Using ‘theory of change’ approach to assess human rights advocacy. Amnesty International
http://www.intrac.org/data/files/Afternoon/3Amnesty_International_-_final.pdf
These posters are from an INTRAC training workshop – thanks to Jenny Ross for highlighting them.
New publication: Learning about Measuring Advocacy and Policy Change: Are Baselines always Feasible and Desirable?
IDS have produced an new paper “ Learning about Measuring Advocacy and Policy Change: Are Baselines always Feasible and Desirable?” (pdf). Here is a summary from the author:
This paper captures some recent challenges that emerged from establishing a baseline for an empowerment and accountability fund. It is widely accepted that producing a baseline is logical and largely uncontested – with the recent increased investment in baselines being largely something to be welcomed. This paper is therefore not a challenge to convention, but rather a note of caution: where adaptive programming is necessary, and there are multiple pathways to success, then the ‘baseline endline’ survey tradition has its limitations. This is particularly so for interventions which seek to alter complex political-economic dynamics, such as between citizens and those in power.
The paper raises some very valid points about the challenges of establishing baselines, particularly for advocacy/policy change projects – one which I’ve also experienced in that with advocacy we are never rarely starting from “zero” – organisations could have been working on a given issue for some time when this given project came along.
Advocacy evaluation: mini tool kit
Really great concise advocacy evaluation mini-tool kit (pdf) – some very useful ideas on activity tracking and measuring support for a given issue.
more resources on advocacy evaluation
Below are some resources on advocacy evaluation that I’ve come across recently (they may not be *new* but they are to me!)
Advocacy evaluation: Review and Opportunities (pdf): Justin Whelan (2008) reviews the emerging literature in this field, noting the points of convergence and divergence and suggesting some limitations of the frameworks and opportunities for effective evaluation that meets the needs of interest groups.
Advocacy evaluation: What it is and where to find out more about it (pdf): Various authors from the health field define advocacy evaluation and provide a list of resources.
Unique methods in advocacy evaluation (pdf): From Julia Coffman and Ehren Reed, an interesting article on some evaluation methods that are considered unique to advocacy evaluation.
Still not had enough? Read my past posts on advocacy evaluation>>
A guide to monitoring government policies
We often focus on the evaluation of advocacy that aims to influence government policies – but another important aspect is to monitor government policy as it develops (or not).
Here is a useful guide from CAFOD, Trocaire and Christian Aid on this subject: Monitoring government policies: A toolkit for civil society organisations in Africa (pdf).
It explains very well how policy is developed and when and how it can be monitored – very informative.
Insights into NGO advocacy evaluation
A group of leading NGOs have published a comparative study (pdf) on what they are doing in practice on advocacy evaluation. Participating NGOs are: ActionAid International, Amnesty International, Bread for the World, CARE USA , Greenpeace International, ONE, Oxfam and the Sierra Club.
Following is a summary from the study:
For organizations committed to social change, advocacy often figures as a crucial strategic element. How to assess effectiveness in advocacy is, therefore, important. The usefulness of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) in advocacy are subject to much current debate. Advocacy staff, MEL professionals, senior managers, the funding community, and stakeholders of all kinds are searching for ways to improve practices – and thus their odds of success – in complex and contested advocacy environments.
This study considers what a selection of leading advocacy organizations are doing in practice. We set out to identify existing practice and emergent trends in advocacy-related MEL practice, to explore current challenges and innovations. The study presents perceptions of how MEL contributes to advocacy effectiveness, and reviews the resources and structures dedicated to MEL.
Visualizing Information for Advocacy
Just came across this interesting guide(pdf) to using visuals for advocacy from the Tactical Technical Collective – here is an explanation from the authors:
Visualising Information for Advocacy(pdf): An Introduction to Information Design is a manual aimed at helping NGOs and advocates strengthen their campaigns and projects through communicating vital information with greater impact. This project aims to raise awareness, introduce concepts, and promote good practice in information design – a powerful tool for advocacy, outreach, research, organisation and education. Through examples, the booklet demonstrates how to use innovative visual graphics to tell a complex and powerful story in a snapshot.
BetterEvaluation – great resources for M&E
Here is a new website (well, new for me), that I recently discovered:
“An international collaboration to improve evaluation practice and theory by sharing information about options (methods or tools) and approaches. “
There are many resources on the website, for example, if you are interested in advocacy evaluation, there are useful resources on “process tracing”, a useful method for this area.
New advocacy evaluation guide
Bond, the UK alliance of NGOs, has produced an interesting guide on advocacy evaluation:
Assessing effectiveness in influencing power holders (pdf)
The guide looks at the challenges of influencing power holders (usually done through activities grouped under the umbrella of “advocacy”) but comes to the conclusion that evaluation is feasible:
it is possible to tell a convincing story of an organisation’s contribution to change through their influencing and campaigning work by breaking down the steps of the process that led to change, and looking at how an organisation has created change at each step.
The guide also sets out these steps and provides examples of advocacy evaluation tools from NGOs including Oxfam, CARE, Transparency International amongst others.
intelligent measurement 