Advocacy in Action - International AIDS Society

Instructions
Timing: 1 hour 30 minutes
1 Explain the objective of this step; introduce the topic and the activity.
2 Before beginning the activity, ask the whole group to give examples of targets (direct and
indirect) from their experience and from the case studies used in Activity 1.1A.
3 Ask participants to return to their groups. Ask each group to choose one objective, and
write it in the middle of a big piece of paper.
4 Next, they can draw a Venn or other diagram of all the groups, organisations, businesses,
government departments, religious leaders, individuals, etc. that could be targeted to
influence the changes identified in their objective. It may help to classify them as direct and
indirect targets, and to show the links between direct and indirect targets. Encourage the
groups to be as specific as possible – for example, the Minister for Home Affairs, etc. You
can show participants an example.
The diagram should show:
• How close the relationship is between each target and your organisation
• How much they agree with your advocacy objective
• How much influence they have over the advocacy objective
Ask the groups to complete a target information table as in the example on the following
page (see Handout 4, ‘Target information table’, at the end of this section for blank table).
Facilitators’ notes
! Encourage participants to build on their work from Steps 1 to 3.
! Make sure that the groups use an objective that directly involves advocacy.
! Encourage participants to identify targets who may oppose their objective.
! Encourage participants to think strategically – for example, they may need to target the
opposition parties, not only the governing party, or target all religious leaders, not only
those from the main religion. Otherwise the advocates could be seen as partisan or biased
by other decision-makers.
! This activity is easier to do if the group’s objectives are specific. If participants find that their
objectives need improving, discuss this constructively with them. Allow objectives to
change during the planning process.
! The aim of this activity is to learn how to identify targets and prioritise them – the
participants will not have time to complete this activity for all their objectives. However, they
should identify targets for each objective when planning future advocacy work with their
colleagues and those affected by the problem or issue.
! If there is no time for groups to present their diagrams, they can do this after Step 5.
Section 2.4 Step 4: Identify your targets
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