Advocacy in Action - International AIDS Society

Skills-building activity
Objective: By the end of this session participants will be able
to identify at least three questions which are useful for
analysing and influencing policy or legislation
Advocacy in Action Card 1 Analysing and influencing legislation or policies
Preparation time: 2 hours
Resources: example of policy or legislation (can be anything from one sentence to one page);
‘How to...’ Handout
Instructions
Timing: 1 hour
1 Introduce the topic, and explain the objective of the activity.
2 Ask participants to give examples of policy and legislation at local, national and
international level – written or unwritten.
3 Ask participants why analysing legislation or policy is a useful skill for advocacy.
4 Divide participants into groups of three or four people.
5 Give each pair a copy of a legislation or policy document.
6 Ask participants to read the document to each other, and use the ‘Questions to ask
when reading public policy or legislation’ (on the back page of this card) to review its
content. Encourage them to add any other questions they think are useful.
7 Ask participants to write down any questions or areas where more information is needed
to help them understand the legislation or policy.
8 Bring participants together in the whole group. Use these questions for discussion:
? How did you find the process of analysing the legislation or policy?
? Which individuals, groups and institutions are affected by this policy/legislation? How
can you involve them in analysing it, to increase your legitimacy?
? What are the differences between analysing written and unwritten policies and decisions?
? At what stage in the advocacy process is policy and legislation analysis a useful skill?
? What advocacy methods can you use to influence the policy or legislation you have
been analysing?
Facilitators’ notes
! The first four ‘Questions to ask...’ are the most important. Do not worry if there is no
time to use all the other questions.
! If participants are analysing unwritten laws or policies, they will first need to agree on
what the law/policy/tradition says.
! If participants are analysing the implementation or lack of implementation of a policy or
law, you may need to rephrase the analysis questions for them.
! You may want to ask some pairs to do a different activity – preparing some advice
(for example, ‘Try to...’ and ‘Try not to...’ tips) for analysing and influencing policy
or legislation.