Beijing+30 Youth Blog: Strategic Approaches in Measuring the Impact of Your Advocacy
Date:
Author: Sabrina (Sam) Tamayo
Advocacy is driven by strength, power, and passion, aiming to effect meaningful change. It can take many forms—ranging from grassroots initiatives to high-level policy reform—but what unites all advocacy efforts is the desire to transform lives and communities.
As the world approaches the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, or Beijing+30, the Asia Pacific region is reflecting on decades of progress and challenges in advancing gender equality.
Adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, it remains a landmark commitment to women’s empowerment and human rights.
In preparation for Beijing+30, advocates are assessing their activities to determine what has worked, what hasn’t, and where further action is needed to realize its vision. Here are three frameworks that can guide advocates in this process:
l. Advocacy Outcomes Framework
Advocacy is often supported by anecdotal evidence, but this framework seeks to complement it by giving organizations the tools to document outcomes as part of their everyday activities. As such, it evaluates the positive impact of advocacy across four key domains namely:
- Improving Lives: Measuring the tangible improvements in the lives of individuals who benefit from advocacy services.
- Enhancing Sector Responses: Analyze how well critical sectors (such as healthcare, education, or law enforcement) adapt to deliver more inclusive and responsive services.
- Building Community Support: Tracking the growth of community engagement and support for broader participation, which is essential for sustainable change.
- Fostering Continuous Learning: Verifying that advocacy services continue to evolve through ongoing learning and development.
By measuring advocacy in these areas, advocates can paint a clear picture of the impact their efforts are having, not only on individuals but also on communities and sectors. This approach provides a holistic view of advocacy’s influence, highlighting its broad-reaching effects.
ll. Theory of Change
The Theory of Change is a strategic framework that illustrates how specific interventions lead to desired outcomes. It provides a roadmap by linking each advocacy effort with an anticipated change, supported by data and evidence. According to the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), a robust Theory of Change incorporates the following principles:
- Collaborative Development: It should be developed with input from all relevant stakeholders to reflect diverse perspectives.
- Evidence-Based: It must be grounded in data and tested at every stage, ensuring that assumptions about how change will happen are valid.
- Ongoing Learning: It should be a living document, subject to revision based on lessons learned throughout the advocacy journey.
By facilitating continuous evaluation, advocates are able to respond to changing conditions and create the corresponding strategic adjustments.
lll. MEAL Framework
The MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning) framework offers a structured approach to track the advancement of advocacy initiatives. It begins by defining clear objectives—specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) goals focused on systemic development.
MEAL also emphasizes the importance of selecting indicators at different levels namely process, output, and outcome. Process indicators track the activities undertaken, output indicators measure the immediate results of those activities, and outcome indicators ascertain the actual change achieved. By monitoring these metrics, advocates can stay informed about their growth, streamline reporting, and enhance their overall effectiveness.
As the Asia Pacific prepares for the Ministerial Conference on the Beijing+30 Review, it’s more important than ever to assess the movements they have made and ensure that their advocacy-related endeavors are making a real difference. Measuring advocacy impact is challenging, but necessary. Advocates must be adaptable, strategic, and detail-oriented, all the while remaining focused on their core missions. Using frameworks such as the ones mentioned above can help advocates track progress, make informed adjustments, and ultimately achieve goals that are aligned with the SDGs.
Biography:
Sam is passionate about technology, social impact, and sustainable development. She completed an MSc in Prosperity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship at UCL as a Chevening Scholar and finished the program with Distinction. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Project SMILE - a multi-awarded youth-led non-profit organization whose main advocacy is to uplift the lives of underprivileged and neglected Filipinos - one act of kindness at a time.