Evidence-Based Advocacy - United Nations Girls' Education Initiative

Readers may recall from Module 1 that the advocacy process including crafting messages involves the following key
steps:
Identify advocacy issue through situational analysis and assessing advocacy capacities (described in
module 1);
Set goals and objectives;
Analyze policy process;
Identify targets and influentials ;
Develop messages; and
Disseminate messages.
The next step in the process of crafting messages is:
Analyze policy process: In analyzing a policy process, a thorough understanding of key policy players and the
country’s political environment and climate is critical. No two countries in the world formulate policy in exactly the
same way; furthermore, this process may not be clear or transparent! The process itself could be informal, through
conversations with key personnel, or in the context of other meetings. However, an understanding of the context
in which the advocacy messages will be taken forward continues to remain a critical element in the process.
The next step in the process is identification of targets and target audiences: In assessing the target’s interest in
your issue, for each target and influential, assess:
What do they know about the advocacy issue?
What is their attitude towards the issue? What do they believe?
What do they care about? (even if it is not related to the issue)
What will influence them to change?
After a situation analysis, organizing our evidence, identifying the context, the goals and objectives of our
messaging, and the target audiences, we are now ready to actually develop messages.
Development and crafting of messages
It is here that we must remember the ‘Power of Data'. Data are not just numbers…But a story waiting to be told.
UNI10236 © UNICEF/NYHQ2009-0222/Josh Estey
East Asia and Pacific Regional UNGEI: Evidence-based advocacy for gender in education, a learning guide 37