People Benefiting

This indicator intends to give a realistic estimate of how many people have benefited from the changes achieved by the project’s advocacy efforts. It should only be used when a project team is confident that it is possible to quantify the number of people benefiting.

Determine the indicator's value by using the following methodology:

1) Define:

    - which results were achieved by the advocacy initiatives

    - who is supposed to benefit from them and how

    - how many of these people are supposed to benefit

    - what evidence is available to support a claim that these people have benefited

2) Count the total number of people for whom it is possible to provide at least some evidence that they have benefited. Examples of such scenarios include:

    - A project advocated for a government department responsible for disaster prevention to start using a digital early warning system that would ensure that people are alerted in time about a high risk of floods. The department has agreed to use the system. Since the system effectively covers a flood-prone area where 170,000 people live, this number was used as an estimate of how many people benefit from the change the advocacy efforts achieved. 

   - A project’s advocacy campaign targeted three companies selling improved vegetable seeds, asking them to start offering the seeds in smaller packaging, so that even poorer farmers could buy them. Two companies accepted the proposal and started selling small sachets with seeds of selected vegetables. Based on the sales data provided by the two companies, the project estimated how many farmers have benefited from this change.

3) The number calculated in step 2 is the value of this indicator.

Disaggregate the data by gender, age group, and other criteria relevant to the focus of the advocacy efforts.

1) In addition to reporting on the number of people benefiting, also provide qualitative information on how they benefit.

2) As you can see, this indicator gives only a rough estimate of how many people have benefited. Such estimates are often too optimistic. If you need to have more reliable evidence, it is highly recommended that you conduct a survey among a representative sample of the people who were supposed to benefit and measure how many have gained the desired benefits.

3) Use this indicator only if you are sure that you are able to reliably quantify the number of people who are benefiting from the changes achieved by the project’s advocacy efforts.    

4) Any proper advocacy strategy should already include an initial assessment of how many people are impacted by a given issue, which can help you estimate the benefits brought by successful advocacy efforts.