A cluster is a group of agencies that gather to work together towards common objectives within a particular sector of emergency response. Advocacy is a key component of the clusters’ humanitarian response to support the achievement of its priorities at scale.
What is advocacy?
Advocacy is a set of organized activities aimed at influencing the policies and actions of those in power to achieve positive outcomes at a scale that cannot be achieved through direct services or programmes alone.
Advocacy:
- Is about influencing policies, norms, practice, attitudes and the political enabling environment,
- Aims to achieve lasting and positive outcomes at scale in peoples’ lives,
- Is strategic and planned with clear goals and objectives,
- Is a process rather than a one-off event,
- Is not an end in itself,
- Is evidence-based and draws legitimacy and credibility from knowledge and experience
Why is advocacy important?
There are many reasons why advocacy is important, including that it:
- Contributes to changes in behaviours, mindsets and attitudes of individuals, communities and policymakers to get the best outcomes for emergency-affected populations.
- Mobilizes resources, partners, and other stakeholders behind a common cause.
- Helps to achieve economies at scale, or doing things more efficiently, without increasing the size of the operation.
- Ensures people’s voices are heard.
- Enables policy change at a high level, benefiting populations in a long-term and sustainable way.
Advocacy within AoRs/ clusters/ sectors
Advocacy is a key component of the AoR/ cluster/ sector’s humanitarian response to support the achievement of its priorities at scale. It is one of the core cluster functions as defined by the IASC.
The advocacy conducted by humanitarian AoR/ cluster/ sectors supports operational priorities and aims to achieve the best outcomes for emergency affected populations.
- The advocacy undertaken by AoRs/ clusters/ sectors can help to:
- Identify key areas of concern and propose clear and unified solutions to political authorities and institutions,
- Influence technical, policy and financial frameworks,
- Ensure duty bearers are accountable to right holders,
- Lead to changes in policies, institutions, individual attitudes, behaviours, and actions,
- Enable positive change in populations affected by emergencies.
Some areas for cluster-specific and inter-cluster advocacy include advocating for needs, system enhancement, funding or protection of human rights and humanitarian principles.
Humanitarian advocacy
Humanitarian advocacy refers to the advocacy carried out in humanitarian crisis and the advocacy conducted before and after crises and in situations of protracted vulnerability, suffering or conflict. There are some important factors to keep in mind when advocating in a humanitarian context:
- Humanitarian advocacy is generally carried out by humanitarian organizations with operations in-country. Ultimately, organizations rely on the host government to operate in the country, which can present sensitivities and challenges around advocacy to influence the policies and practices of those same governments.
- Links to programmes. There are strong linkages between programmes implemented by humanitarian organizations and their humanitarian advocacy that draw legitimacy from operations in the field.
- Humanitarian and human rights principles. Humanitarian principles, together with human rights, should inform advocacy work, allied to thematic concerns on which there are established positions.
- Fast-paced and volatility. Given the rapid pace and volatility of most humanitarian contexts, timing is essential in humanitarian advocacy. In sudden-onset crises, messages tend to be the ‘lowest common denominator’ and very broad initially and more detailed as more information becomes available.
- Legitimacy. Humanitarian advocacy is most effective when it is based on information gathered at the field level.
- Collaboration. Collaborative advocacy is felt to be ‘essential’ in emergencies to mitigate potential risks that could originate from doing advocacy in sensitive contexts.
Potential risks and mitigators in humanitarian advocacy
Engaging in advocacy can create risks to programmes, staff, partners and beneficiaries. Careful discussion and risk analysis is important in each case to agree on the best approaches for advocacy in order to mitigate possible risks. Possible risks include:
- Security risks against staff, partners or beneficiaries or restrictions on ability to operate,
- Damage to long-standing relationships with partners, donors, government authorities that do not agree with your advocacy approach,
- Damage to organizational reputation,
- Creation of unrealistic expectations on the staff, partners and beneficiaries.
Humanitarian principles and humanitarian advocacy
Humanitarian response is anchored in international human rights and humanitarian law. The four humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence provide the foundations for humanitarian action and are also essential to humanitarian advocacy.
It is important to always ensure that advocacy activities uphold all humanitarian principles to the extent possible.
Human rights and humanitarian action
Human rights are inherent to all human beings without discrimination. They are non-derogable and apply at all times.
In human-rights programming, international human rights and humanitarian standards and norms offer a basis for principled, norm-based and constructive engagement in humanitarian action ensuring it is focused on alleviating suffering and addressing the root causes of crises. It aims at empowering people to claim their rights and strengthen the capacities and accountability of duty-bearers to meet their obligations.
Some features of a human rights-based approach:
- It is based on human rights principles and standards and aims at promoting and protecting human rights,
- It helps identify right-holders and their entitlements and corresponding duty-bearers and their obligations,
- It seeks to strengthen the capacities of right-holders to make their claims, and of dutybearers to meet their obligations, and by doing so, guarantees the sustainability of development and assistance programmes,
- It emphasizes participation, particularly of discriminated and marginalized groups,
- It promotes accountability of duty-bearers to fulfil their obligations.
In adopting the human rights-based approach, IASC clusters ground themselves in a comprehensive body of normative standards, from international human rights and humanitarian law to regional human rights instruments to Security Council Resolutions strengthening their position as principled, impartial, neutral, credible humanitarian actors.
