Understanding of Effective Advocacy

% of [specify the target group] who understand the key principles and practices of effective advocacy

The indicator assesses to what extent the target group members (such as advocacy team members or staff of partner organisations) understand the key principles and practices of designing and implementing effective advocacy initiatives. It indicates the extent to which they can support the effective implementation of advocacy efforts. The data can also highlight the need for (further) training on specific topics relating to advocacy.

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

 

1) Define who is expected to understand the key principles and practices of effective advocacy. This should be primarily people who participate in designing or implementing the advocacy initiatives, including the staff of any partner organisations. 

 

2) Define the essential amount of the most important knowledge related to designing and implementing effective advocacy initiatives that the people defined in point 1 should have.

 

3) Prepare a simple test assessing whether the people have the predefined, most important knowledge. The test can use a combination of the following:

   - questions assessing people’s knowledge related to the key principles and practices of effective advocacy initiatives

   - scenarios where a person is asked to describe how s/he would respond to a given situation (i.e. there are no predefined answers)

    - questions asking people to choose between two or more statements (one being correct, one or more being incorrect)

    - questions assessing the extent to which people believe common misconceptions related to advocacy (both in general as well as related to mainstreaming)

Ensure that you include enough open-ended questions, as – compared to questions with single / multiple choice answers – they allow you to better understand people’s knowledge. If you do not specialise in advocacy, engage a relevant expert in preparing and evaluating the test.

To avoid having unrealistically high or unnecessarily low requirements, verify the difficulty of the test by pre-testing it with several people.

 

4) Decide how many marks will be allocated to each correct answer. For example, for a correct answer to a simple question, you can give one mark, while for correct answers to more complex questions/scenarios, you can give two marks.

 

5) Decide how many marks a person needs to get to be considered as “understanding the key principles and practices of effective advocacy” (e.g. a score of at least 15 out of 20).

 

6) Administer the test. If you need to compare people’s understanding before and after a specific learning event (e.g. a training), you might need to design two comparable tests to administer a pre- and post-test.

 

7) Count the number of people who achieved the minimum acceptable score (see point 5).

 

8) To calculate the indicator’s value, divide the number of people who achieved the minimum acceptable score by the total number of people who completed the test. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

  

Disaggregate the data by the position, gender, and age group of the participants.

1) Keep in mind that using this indicator is not supposed to be a heavy exercise – it is only about someone defining what people really need to know about advocacy, preparing practical test / exercise that checks how well they know it, and then using the results.

 

2) You should share the test results with the participants, as it is a valuable learning opportunity. Accompany it with a discussion about the correct answers.