in English - Handicap International

When organizations of disabled persons identify the public entity and person that
possess the decision-making power to respond concretely to the proposed solution,
they must be very clear to avoid making errors. Occasionally, their limited
experience with this type of political advocacy work can lead them to incorrect
identifications and to knock on the wrong doors. Demands and proposals are
sometimes brought to the legislative power when they really correspond to the
executive branch.
In our example here, we can conclude that the final decision-maker for our proposal
is the Minister of Labor, in consultation with the director of this ministry’s job program.
But we cannot stop with the mere identification of the final decision-maker.
We must also understand the process through which the decision is made.
It is possible that based on the information obtained and with the assistance of
an expert from this field, we might determine that a ministerial decree is needed
to modify the national employment policy, to insure the inclusion of people with
disabilities.
In this case, we will need to negotiate a concrete and well-founded proposal with
the Minister, which expands the national employment policy in the way we are
seeking.
Step 4. Analyze channels of influence (power mapping)
With the proposal already developed, we must now identify the power mechanisms
and key actors who will influence the final decision. We must work, therefore,
on analyzing the channels of influence and develop a power map that helps us
identify the most important actors and their degree of influence, positively or negatively,
at the moment a decision will be made in relation to our proposal.
Anytime that we are designing a political advocacy strategy or campaign, we find
that there are different actors (public institutions, private businesses, legislators, civil
society organizations, etc.) that have or might later develop some interest in our
proposal.
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