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Strategic Engagement Handbook_A Guide to Effectively Engage Key Stakeholders to Prioritise Family_English |
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STRATEGIC
ENGAGEMENT
HANDBOOK
A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVELY
ENGAGE KEY STAKEHOLDERS TO
PRIORITISE FAMILY PLANNING
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Population Foundation of India
B-28, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi – 110016
T: +91 11 43894 100 | F: +91 11 43894 199
www.populationfoundation.in
© Population Foundation of India 2022
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STRATEGIC
ENGAGEMENT
HANDBOOK
A GUIDE TO EFFECTIVELY
ENGAGE KEY STAKEHOLDERS TO
PRIORITISE FAMILY PLANNING
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Healthy mother, healthy child
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Foreword
Strategic Engagement with key
stakeholders—including policymakers,
programme planners, and the media—is
the cornerstone of Population Foundation
of India’s work on family planning, sexual
and reproductive health and population-
related issues. We have provided
compelling evidence for over four
decades to inform and support decision-
making by the government. We critically
analyse policies, programs, and strategies
on population, family planning, and
sexual and reproductive health of women,
men, and adolescents. Through this
approach, we strive to ensure a gender-
sensitive and rights-based approach to
family planning, sexual and reproductive
health and population discourse.
This Strategic Engagement Handbook
– a guide to effectively engage key
stakeholders to prioritise family planning,
is a result of decades of experience and
engagement with stakeholders on key
issues impacting the family planning
outcomes in the country. The Handbook
is designed to be a reader-friendly,
practical guide for those working on
family planning as well as other health
issues to engage strategically with
policymakers, influencers, and thought
leaders. It is intended to be an evolving
document that will benefit from the
feedback of its users. We hope this
Handbook will aid the users in developing
an effective strategic engagement plan
that will inform and inspire decision-
making.
In facilitating the development of this
Handbook, some of our colleagues and
experts have provided valuable inputs
and each one deserves our sincere praise
and appreciation.
We would also like to express our
gratitude to our partner organisations
Gram Nirman Mandal (GNM), Neha
Gramin Mahila Vikas Samiti (NGMVS),
and Bihar Voluntary Health Association
(BVHA) from Bihar; Manjari Sansthan,
Jatan Sansthan, and Shiv Shiksha Samiti
from Rajasthan, and Sustainable Human
Development Association (SHDA) from
Uttar Pradesh, that volunteered to review
the draft version and provided first-hand
user feedback and suggestions that
enriched the Handbook.
Poonam Muttreja
Executive Director
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Chapter 1
Introduction
8
Chapter 2
Understanding the
Environment
24 84
Chapter 6
Strategic
Communications
Chapter 3
Setting Goals and
Objectives
Chapter 4
Developing
Strategic
Engagement Plan
Chapter 5
Collecting and
Generating
Evidence
40 104
Chapter 7
Leveraging
Opportunities
48 114
Chapter 8
Monitoring and
Evaluation
74 138
Chapter 9
Next Steps
Annexure
142
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Acronyms
AFHC
Adolescent Friendly Health Clinic
AFP
Advance Family Planning
A-PHC
Additional Primary Health Centre
ARC
Advocating Reproductive Choices
AYSRHR
Adolescent and Youth Sexual and
Reproductive Health and Rights
BPMC
Block Planning and Monitoring
Committee
CEDAW
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women
CHC
Community Health Centre
CSE
Comprehensive Sexuality Education
CSO
Civil Society Organisation
CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility
DWG
District Working Group
6
Population Foundation of India
FCRA
Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act
FDS
Fixed Day Service
FP2020
Family Planning 2020
IBP
Implementing Best Practices
ICFP
International Conference on Family
Planning
ICPD
International Conference on Population
and Development
IYAFP
International Youth Alliance for Family
Planning
LARC
Long-acting reversible contraceptive
M&E
Monitoring & Evaluation
mCPR
Modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate
MHA
Ministry of Home Affairs
MLA
Member of Legislative Assembly
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MLALAD
Member of Legislative Assembly Local
Area Development
MoHFW
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
MoI&B
Ministry of Information & Broadcasting
MP
Member of Parliament
MPLAD
Member of Parliament Local Area
Development
NFHS
National Family Health Survey
NGO
Non-Government Organisation
NHM
National Health Mission
NSV
Non-Scalpel Vasectomy
OCI
Overseas Citizen of India
PARI
People’s Archive of Rural India
PFMS
Public Financial Management System
PHC
Primary Health Centre
RCFP
Realising Commitments to Family
Planning
RF
Results Framework
RKSK
Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram
SBI
State Bank of India
SDG
Sustainable Development Goals
SMART
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant,
Time-bound
SWOT
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities
and Threats
TFR
Total Fertility Rate
TOC
Theory of Change
UN
United Nations
UNFPA
United Nations Population Fund
USAID
United States Agency for International
Development
VHSNC
Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition
Committee
WCD
Women and Child Development
WHO
World Health Organisation
Acronyms
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1.Introduction
This strategic engagement handbook will support individuals and
organisations to initiate conversations with decision makers and thought
leaders to build their interest in family planning.
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Population Foundation of India has
been working for the last five decades to
advance gender-sensitive, evidence-based
sexual, reproductive and adolescent
health policies and programmes for
an equitable and prosperous society.
Today, Population Foundation of India is
a recognised leader in amplifying these
issues as an integral part of public health
activities within India as well as globally.
A core approach in Population
Foundation of India’s successful efforts
is strategic engagement, also called
advocacy. Strategic engagement uses
high-quality, evidence-based narratives or
messages to inform and inspire dialogue
with policy makers and other thought
leaders to guide or inform their decisions
related to a specific goal.
Population Foundation of India’s strategic
engagement goal is to create an enabling
environment for family planning in the
country, using a women’s empowerment
and rights framework. Our goals are
aligned with the National Population
Policy, India’s Family Planning 2030
(FP2030) commitments and international
pacts such as the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW)1 and the
International Conference on Population
and Development (ICPD)2.
This handbook provides a simple step-by-
step guide to help you develop a strategic
engagement plan for family planning
policies and programmes. It draws upon
our experience and expertise, as well as
other national and global best practices.
The processes and tools provided can
help you initiate strategic engagement or
revisit and strengthen existing activities.
While this handbook mainly focuses on
issues and examples related to family
planning policies, the processes and tools
detailed here are also relevant to other
programmes and can be adapted as
needed.
Organisations embarking on strategic engagement
should be aware at all times of the prevalent
legislation in their respective country governing
such types of activities. The Foreign Contribution
Regulation Act is a key legislation for organisations
operating in India.
1 https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/
2 https://www.unfpa.org/icpd
Introduction
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Why this handbook?
In this handbook Population Foundation of India has distilled its experience of working
with decision makers, thought leaders and programme planners into a step-by-step
guide to support individuals and organisations to plan their strategic engagement.
This handbook focuses on family
planning
Family planning saves lives! Family
planning can reduce maternal mortality
by 57%3, infant mortality by 10% and
childhood mortality by 21%4. Studies have
estimated that if women who wanted to
stop or delay childbearing had access
to and used contraceptives, India would
have 35,000 fewer maternal deaths and
12 lakh fewer infant deaths5.
Universal access to family planning is a
focus of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDG)6.Goal 3 on Health and Goal
5 on Gender Equality and Women’s
Empowerment both contain targets
related to sexual and reproductive health.
Analysis by experts and economists
from United Nations (UN) agencies, non-
governmental organisations (NGOs) and
the private sector found that investing
in efforts to reach the SDG target of
universal access to family planning
brought one of the highest social,
economic and environmental benefits
per dollar spent compared to investing in
efforts related to other SDG targets7.
This Strategic Engagement Handbook
will help you to understand how strategic
engagement works and to design
programmes to bring focus on family
planning policies and programmes.
It brings together best practices
The tools and strategies you will find in
this handbook are not unique! Many have
been successfully used by Population
Foundation of India and organisations
nationally and globally. This handbook
brings together national and global best
practices to help you understand and
use strategic engagement effectively.
We acknowledge materials and ideas
contributed by different organisations
and credit them in the footnotes.
3 Maternal deaths averted by contraceptive use: An analysis of 172 countries; Lancet; 2012
4 Cleland J. et al. 2012. Contraception and Health. Lancet 2012. Published online July 10, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60609-6
5 Annual Report 2019-20, Department of Health & Family Welfare, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India
6 https://sdgs.un.org/goals
7 Post-2015 Consensus; https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus
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It is based on a 7-step approach
This handbook focuses on the 7-step
approach that Population Foundation
of India uses for strategic engagement
on family planning. Each of the 7 steps
is described in detail in the subsequent
chapters.
Figure 1: The 7-step approach to strategic engagement
1
3
5
7
UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIROMENT
What is the current status of the issue and the desired
status? Who are the key stakeholders and their
position on the issue?
SETTING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
What are the problems or challenges we are trying to
address? What do we want to achieve? Can it be solved
through strategic engagement?
DEVELOPING STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT PLAN
What are our asks? Who are the thought leaders we
believe can help bring change? How do we plan to
work with them?
COLLECTING AND GENERATING EVIDENCE
What evidence is available to support our
ask? What additional research do we need to
undertake?
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
What are our core narratives? What tools do we use
to communicate our narratives? Who are our
champions?
LEVERAGING OPPORTUNITIES
What platforms do we use to reach thought leaders?
What are the emerging opportunities? Which mix of
techniques and platforms do we use and how?
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Is it working? What do we need to change and
what do we need to continue doing?
2
4
6
Introduction
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It provides simple usable tools
Strategic engagement may seem
overwhelming for some. We have used
this approach for many decades, learning
and unlearning, modifying activities
over time. We hope you will use our
experience so that you do not have to
‘reinvent the wheel’.
Every step of the handbook has simple
worksheets, tools and checklists for your
use or adaptation. For your convenience,
each tool is provided on a separate page
to facilitate photocopying.
It helps you ‘see’ how it works
The case studies shared in this handbook
are from past and current projects
implemented by Population Foundation
of India at the national and sub-national
level.
It gives you the resources to use
The handbook also contains additional
resources that we have used during our
strategic engagement with different
stakeholders and that may be useful in
your strategic engagement activities.
Who can use this handbook?
Use this handbook if you are:
• An individual interested or already
involved in strategic engagement for
family planning.
• An NGO working on family planning
and interested in using strategic
engagement as an approach.
• An individual or NGO working on any
other issue and interested in using
strategic engagement as an approach.
Personnel across different levels in an organization can use this handbook. For
example:
• The senior management and programme designers can use the entire handbook
to lead their teams through the process of implementing strategic engagement
processes.
• The programme managers can use specific tools for ongoing efforts to introduce
elements of strategic engagement like the tools for identifying key stakeholders.
• At the field office level, the checklist on using strategic engagement with local
champions will be useful.
• For the communications team the tool on developing the key message will be
useful.
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How is this handbook organised?
The Introduction provides you with
an overview of the handbook. It will
give you an understanding of strategic
engagement and allow you to assess if it
1
is a relevant or useful approach for you/
The rest of the handbook is divided
your organisation.
into 7 key chapters based on the 7-step
approach to strategic engagement.
2
This chapter will guide you through
the first step, Understanding the
Environment, by looking at data and
knowing who the key stakeholders are.
This chapter will help you Set Goals
and Objectives while prioritising your
3
engagement issue.
This chapter will provide you with tools
and checklists to Develop Strategic
4
Engagement Plan using different
tactics for engagement. Case studies
will shed light on what works best in
different contexts.
Before reaching out to different
stakeholders, this chapter will show how
to Collect and Generate Evidence to
5
build the case for family planning.
This chapter will guide you on
crafting Strategic Communication
messages that are evidence-based
6
and audience-specific. It includes
sample communication products that
The tools provided in this chapter
can be used or adapted by you/your
will help you identify and Leverage
organisation.
Opportunities for strategic
engagement. It will also help you
7
determine how to turn a crisis into an
opportunity.
The tools and resources in this chapter
will guide Monitoring and Evaluation
8
of your strategic engagement efforts,
capturing both successes and failures
and providing lessons for future
engagements.
Finally, this last chapter concludes this
handbook and provides some Next
9
Steps for you.
The Annexures at the end will provide
you with references and links to
10
additional resources that you can refer
to as you work your way through the
process.
Introduction
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What is strategic engagement?
Strategic engagement is a sustained process that seeks to guide or inform policies and
programmes with decision makers and thought leaders.
Strategic engagement is the act or
process of increasing knowledge and
understanding of decision makers and
other thought leaders to support a cause
and bring about desired change (see
Annexure 1 page 143 for other popular
definitions).
• Strategic engagement is a process, a
series of deliberate actions or steps
designed to achieve a particular end
goal.
• Strategic engagement is a sustained
action; not a single action that begins
and ends with an event.
• Strategic engagement uses evidence,
in the form of data, experience and
knowledge of working directly with the
communities.
Strategic engagement is different from
lobbying, activism or even campaigning
as summarised in Figure 2 (also see
comparison in Annexure 1 page 144).
ProcessStrategic Polices
Engagement Decision-makers Sustained
Evidence
Process
Engagement
Process Strategic
Decision-makers
Evidence
Process Thought Thought Engagement
Engagement Polices
Sustained Polices
Inform
Evidence
Evidence
Programmes
Polices Engagement
Guide leaders
Polices
Programmes
ProgGDraeucmisiiodnm-emaekleesrsaderAs GPcPuoroildcitceeiesossleandEervsProicAdecssteionnIncfeoEvrimdence
Polices Inform
Guide leaders
Figure 2: Other forms of engagement
Lobbying
Engagements that
are intended to
influence specific
legislation
Activism
Taking direct action
to achieve a political
or social goal
Awareness Campaign
Raising awareness
on a specific issue by
informing, educating
and communicating
with a wider
audience
Community Mobilisation
Building a communi-
ty's capacity to rank
its needs and take
action
Refer to Resource 1 (page 15) for a
snapshot of the key theories that inform
strategic engagement.
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Resource 1:
Theory
‘Large leaps’
or punctuated
equilibrium
theory9
Theories that inform strategic engagement8
Use when
Tactics
• Your goal is a large-scale
policy change
• You have access to or good
relationships with media
• Questioning policies at
fundamental levels and not
just administrative or rule
changes to existing policies
• Working with the media
to plan and implement
strategies
• Using messages that are
culturally meaningful and
connect with social values
‘Coalition’
theory or
Advocacy
coalition
framework10
• You know of a sympathetic
decision maker in the office
• You have a strong group of
allies with a common goal or
can bring together allies as
required
• Working along with the
decision maker to make
policy changes
• Engaging mass media to
affect public opinion
• Using research to change
perceptions about policies
• Exploring and pursuing
multiple avenues for change
‘Power politics’
or power elite
theory11
• You already have one or
more key allies in place
• Your goal is incremental
policy change, e.g.,
administrative or rule
changes (as against large-
scale changes)
• Working directly with
decision makers
• Working with select thought
leaders who can impact
policy change
8 UNICEF. Advocacy Toolkit: A guide to influencing decisions that improve children’s lives. October 2010.
9 Baumgartner, Frank R. and Brian Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1993.
10 Sabatier, Paul A., Theories of the Policy Process, Westview, Boulder, CO, 1999.
11 Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite, new ed., Oxford University, New York, 2000; and Domhoff, G. William, The Power Elite and the State: How
policy is made in America, Aldine De Gruyter, New York, 1990.
Introduction
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Resource 1:
Theory
‘Grass-roots’
or community
organising
theory12
Theories that inform strategic engagement
Use when
Tactics
• You know of/work with a
distinct group of individuals
directly affected by an issue
• You are willing to play a
convener or capacity-builder
role rather than the ‘driver’
role
• Capacity building,
community mobilising,
awareness building, action
research, policy analysis,
media engagement, social
protest, whistleblowing
• Taking collective action, not
individual action
Family planning counseling at a facility
12 Alinsky, Saul D., Rules for Radicals: A pragmatic primer for realistic radicals, Vintage, New York, 1989; and Biklen, Douglas P., Community
Organizing Theory and Practice, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983.
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Identifying capacities for strategic engagement
Initiate or continue with your strategic engagement efforts while you strengthen
your capacity. It need not be linear!
Before you decide to use strategic
engagement, it is important to determine
if you or your organisation have the skills,
time and money required. While you
can use a simple strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis
to do a basic capacity assessment, it is
recommended that you take some time
to conduct an in-depth assessment. The
in-depth assessment will help you not
only understand your current capacity
to undertake strategic engagement but
also help you identify gaps and plan for
strengthening capacity.
There are different tools that you or your
organisation can use to identify capacity:
• The Advocacy Capacity Assessment
Tool13
• ACT! Advocacy Capacity Tool14
• Foundation Areas for Advocacy15
We have adapted these tools into two
easy tools that you can use.
Use Tool 1 (page 18) to assess your
capacities.
Use Tool 2 (page 23) to plan for building
your capacity and expertise to undertake
strategic engagement.
It is important to note that strategic
engagement requires dedicated
resources and can often have unexpected
costs.
13 The Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool: Facilitator’s Guide. Initiatives Inc. and PATH. USAID. 2017.
14 ACT! Advocacy Capacity Tool. Bolder Advocacy. Alliance for Justice. 2018
15 UNICEF. Advocacy Toolkit: A guide to influencing decisions that improve children’s lives. October 2010.
Introduction
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Tool 1:
Are you ready to take up strategic engagement?
Use the table below to gauge your
own or your organisation’s current
skills and resources for strategic
engagement. If you are doing this
exercise as an organisation, make sure
you use this tool as a team.
Use the score analysis provided at the
end to understand where you stand.
This will also help you to use Tool 2
(page 23) to plan for capacity building.
For each capacity category, we have
provided a brief on what it means. Use
that as a key when you assess your
capacity.
Capacity category
Current capacity*
Credibility
Credibility and legitimacy are two key pieces for strategic engagement. Audiences are more likely to listen
and believe messages if the messenger is considered legitimate and the source is credible. Credibility is
when we (individuals/organisations) are considered honest, reliable and without any ulterior motive.
Legitimacy is gained when we are either people who are affected by the issue or have the authority to
represent people affected by the issue. For example, Population Foundation of India is a credible source
of information on family planning because of its long-term work with communities to improve access to
family planning.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We can legitimately speak on behalf of those affected by the issue.
I am/We are known to and respected by the decision makers and other
thought leaders.
I/We have the reputation of being non-partisan and objective.
I/We comply with the legal and ethical standards of engagement with partners
and other stakeholders.
Sub-total 1 (out of a maximum of 20)
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Expertise
Strategic engagement requires a wide variety of skills, from knowledge about the issue to creative
problem solving and good judgment. It is important to move beyond technical skills and think
systemically about organisational capacity for strategic engagement. For example, over the years
Population Foundation of India has built capacities in strategic communication, fundraising and media
engagement and now has dedicated teams/staff to undertake each of these tasks.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We have strong skills for analysis, research and communication required for
strategic engagement.
I/We have staff who have optimum technical knowledge and skills to develop a
strategic engagement plan and implement it.
I/We have people who have the capacity and skills to effectively monitor and
evaluate progress against the strategic engagement plan.
Sub-total 2 (out of a maximum of 15)
Coordination and leadership
Strategic engagement is not possible without strong leadership. The ability of organisational leaders
to create and sustain a vision, to inspire, prioritise, make decisions, provide direction and innovate,
often makes the difference between vastly successful and less successful strategic engagement
initiatives. Similarly, consistent and effective strategic engagement requires coordinated functioning of
different teams within the organisation, exchanging learning, arriving at a consensus, etc. For example,
irrespective of job titles, all staff at Population Foundation of India know and share the same goal, i.e.,
prioritising family planning.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We have a strong degree of coordination, open and free-flowing
communication, across different teams/units to work together on a collective
plan.
I/We have strong leadership and approachable senior management to guide,
supervise and support the strategic engagement efforts.
I/Everyone in the organisation understands my/their roles and responsibilities
contributing to the larger strategic engagement efforts.
There are mechanisms in place for all staff members to become aware of
strategic engagement messages and priorities.
Sub-total 3 (out of a maximum of 20)
Introduction
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Capacity category
Current capacity*
Generating and communicating evidence
For effective strategic engagement, it is important to base the messages on evidence that is convincing
and compelling to the decision makers and thought leaders so they take the desired action. To gather
more evidence, we can conduct rapid assessments to quickly collect relevant information. In addition, it
is important to package the evidence into our narrative and communicate it through short and easy-
to-understand knowledge products. For example, Population Foundation of India collects evidence
related to population and family planning from their own research and from studies done by others. A
team of researchers reviews government sources, published scientific or academic journals and when
required, commissions studies like the 3-state rapid assessment in July 2020 to understand the impact of
COVID-19 on adolescents’ access to reproductive and sexual health information and services.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
Research priorities factor in my/our strategic engagement initiatives.
I/We involve members of the communication and knowledge management
teams in deciding research priorities.
I/We have the capacity for collecting and analysing data and conducting
research which can address policy changes.
I/We have processes in place to measure the potential risks of using different
types of evidence.
I/We have the communications capacity to condense and prepare non-
technical knowledge materials and messages for a wide range of thought
leaders.
Sub-total 4 (out of a maximum of 25)
Risk management
Strategic engagement is not guaranteed to succeed. To operate effectively, the strategic engagement
team must be willing and encouraged to take calculated risks. It is important to be able to identify and
balance the risks and benefits of strategic engagement opportunities that arise. For example, Population
Foundation of India undertook a calculated risk when we commissioned a study to demonstrate the
gap between desired levels of family planning investments with levels of actual investments in India.
Anticipating the report might be seen unfavourably by the government departments, we took necessary
measures to mitigate the risk. The effort was successful: the findings were used by India’s Chief Economic
Advisor to seek more investment in family planning.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We encourage and support the team in taking calculated risks which come
with strategic engagement.
I/We have conducted a vulnerability and capacity analysis.
I/We have a risk mitigation and management plan in place.
I/We have reliable and sound evidence, smooth internal coordination and
strong leadership and partnerships, which can help minimise risks.
I/We give careful consideration to short term and long-term gains and risks,
especially on its impact on those affected by the issue, staff members,
funding, credibility and strategic objectives of the organisation.
Sub-total 5 (out of a maximum of 25)
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Networking and coalition building
Networking both internally and externally is essential to meeting strategic engagement goals. Coalition-
building should include parties with any plausible interest in the subject, not only those with direct
benefit but also those with more broadly defined, general interest in the issue. For example, Population
Foundation of India is the Secretariat to the Advocating Reproductive Choices (ARC) Coalition and
networks with its members on family planning.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We have strong engagement with various arms of the government, like
health and family welfare, women and child development, human resource
development, finance, etc.
I/We have strong relationships with international and regional networks, coa-
litions or alliances that are actively engaged in strategic engagement on issues
that concern us.
I/We have strong engagement with individuals/organisations that work directly
with people who are affected by the issue that we are strategically engaging
on.
I/We have strong engagement with research institutes, think tanks and
universities to generate evidence.
I/We have strong engagement with thought leaders in the private or corporate
sector.
Sub-total 6 (out of a maximum of 25)
Resources
Strategic engagement is a resource-intensive exercise, requiring funds, staff time, training, knowledge
products and materials over an extended period. A successful strategic engagement initiative usually
requires an organisation to be flexible and quick at allocating and reallocating resources, as necessary.
For example, to ensure resources are quickly available for strategic engagement, Population Foundation
of India has reduced dependence on a single donor and diversified sources of support. We have asked
donors for flexibility to rapidly change funding allocations and sometimes, in the way funds are used.
*Score on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “Strongly Disagree”, 2 “Disagree”, 3 “Undecided”, 4 “Agree” and 5 “Strongly Agree”
I/We have adequate resources such as funds – donor support or existing
budgets – to strategically engage with multiple stakeholders and thought
leaders on our issues.
I/We are putting efforts on mobilising additional resources, both financial and
non-financial, through various thought leaders.
I/We have mechanisms in place to ensure maximum flexibility of financial
resources for strategic engagement.
I/We can mobilise and reallocate resources in a short time, if required.
Sub-total 7 (out of a maximum of 20)
Grand Total (1-7 out of a maximum of 150)
Introduction
21
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Score analysis
125 –150
You have a strong capacity for strategic engagement! You may even want
to consider becoming a mentor for other organisations.
100 –124
You have a good capacity for strategic engagement! However, you may
need to identify specific areas for capacity building. Use Tool 2 (page 23) to
identify areas for strengthening and plan.
75 –99
You have a moderate capacity for strategic engagement. There is scope for
improvement. You will need to invest in building capacity. Use Tool 2 (page
23) to prioritise and plan your efforts for capacity building.
50 –74
<50
You have limited capacity for strategic engagement. You should consider
seeking partnership/support/ mentorship from a more experienced
organisation, while building your capacities. Use Tool 2 (page 23)
extensively to plan your capacity building. Use Tool 4 (page 38) and
Resource 7 (page 70) to identify strategic engagement partners.
You have a low capacity for strategic engagement. You should develop
a long-term plan to build institutional capacity for strategic engagement
and perhaps begin by contributing through networks and coalitions. Use
Tool 2 (page 23) to make your long-term plan. Use Resource 7 (page 70) to
identify platforms that you can contribute through.
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Tool 2:
Identify areas for strengthening and planning capacity building
Use this tool only if your overall score in Tool 1 is less than 125.
Scores do not reflect the quality of
your strategic engagement effort, they
just help you to understand where
you have the requisite skills, what you
need to develop, what you can get
your partners to do.
Based on your score in Tool 1 (page
18), use the tool below to identify
areas for strengthening and planning
your internal capacity building efforts.
You may choose to expand this to
identify specific elements rather than
the broad category.
Revisit the Tool after a specified
time period – it could be a month, a
quarter, or 6 months. See if you have
been able to achieve your capacity
building goal.
Capacity
category
Minimum
category
score
(80% of
maximum)
Current
capacity
(Sub-total
score – fill
from Tool 1
page 18)
Identified
category
(Choose
if current
score is
less than
minimum
score –
mark √)
Credibility
16
Expertise
12
Coordination 16
and leadership
Generating and 20
communicating
evidence
Risk
20
management
Networking 20
and coalition
building
Resources
16
Fill only for identified categories
Do you
have a
partner/
can
identify a
partner to
help you
with this?
Action –
What can
you do
to build
internal
capacity?
Person Timeline
responsible
Introduction
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2.Understanding the
Environment
Strategic engagement activities should fit the social, cultural, economic
and legal context of society. Understanding the environment for family
planning efforts, including the existing data, policies, resources and relevant
stakeholders strengthens strategic engagement.
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Developing an impactful strategic
engagement plan requires identifying
what and who influences the issue you/
your organisation has identified for
strategic engagement. This can vary from
one region to another and will likely
change over time. To understand the
environment around your issue, ask two
simple but extensive questions:
• What is the current status of the issue
and what is the desired status or the
change we are asking for?
• Who are the key stakeholders and
thought leaders who can help the
process and what is their position on
the issue?
While these questions may appear
overwhelming at first glance, they can be
addressed by focusing on the following:
• What is the demand for family
planning services and what are the
prevailing social norms, knowledge,
behaviour and practices related to
family planning?
• What are the related health and
social indicators that impact family
planning like maternal, infant and
under-five mortality rates or gender-
based violence and gender norms that
impact the choice of and access to
family planning services?
• What are the policies, programmes,
laws and regulations related to family
planning within the country, state?
• Who are the stakeholders and thought
leaders who can help move the family
planning agenda forward?
• What are the current activities –
campaigns, strategic engagements,
etc. – being undertaken and what has
been the impact?
Use Tool 3 (page 30) to capture
information on the environment for
family planning.
Refer to Resource 2 (page 32) for a list
of sources that you can use for your
situation assessment exercise.
Chapter 5 on collecting
and generating evidence
(page 74) will provide
further insights into building
evidence.
Chapter 6 on strategic
communication (page 84)
will provide guidance on how
to use data to present your
case.
Group of adolescent girls
interacting with ASHAs in Bihar
Understanding the Environment
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CASE 1
RAPID ASSESSMENT TO IDENTIFY BARRIERS TO NSV SERVICE UPTAKE16
The city of Firozabad, in Uttar Pradesh, India is home to several dozen industries,
which collectively employ nearly 10,000 workers, over 95% of whom are male.
Despite several efforts by the district health administration to increase uptake
of Non-Scalpel Vasectomy (NSV) among industrial workers, the uptake of NSV
services remained low.
The District Working Group (DWG) in Firozabad – a group of officials from health
and non-health departments and civil society organisations (CSO) and interested
private sector representatives – undertook a rapid assessment to comprehensively
understand the current status of the NSV programme, the opportunities and
challenges and the stakeholders and target audiences necessary to improve
uptake of NSV services. The DWG found that one of the reasons for poor uptake
among industrial workers, who were mainly semi-skilled, contracted workers,
was the loss of wages when they missed work during the procedure and recovery
period.
The DWG identified the District Magistrate and the Firozabad Industrial Association
(FIA) as the key stakeholders to achieve their strategic engagement objective. A
meeting with these stakeholders presented the key features of the family planning
programme, the contribution of family planning to the state’s overall health and
growth and the benefits of family planning on employees’ welfare. This resulted
in members of FIA agreeing to offer three days of paid leave for male employees
who would undergo the NSV procedure at a public health facility. It led to a 7-fold
increase in NSV cases in the district.
16 Advance Family Planning. India’s Firozabad Industrial Association Approved Paid Leave for Men Seeking Vasectomy Services. 8 March 2018.
https://www.advancefamilyplanning.org/indias-firozabad-industrial-association-approves-paid-leave-men-seeking-vasectomy-services
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Understanding the policy environment
In countries like India, policy making operates within an open, democratic system and
has many actors and players. Understanding the policy environment is key to planning
impactful inputs to guide policy.
Policy development moves through five
stages (Figure 3). Understanding the stage
your issue is at will help you determine
how to move the issue forward, identify
stakeholders and thought leaders that
can help and develop an achievable
objective. Do policies favourable to your
issue already exist? If not, is it due to lack
of evidence and/or lack of political will?
If supportive policies exist, what are the
gaps in implementation? Is the policy
achieving its intended purpose?
Existing policies and commitments are
a key tool in strategic engagement.
The policy environment that impacts
family planning includes policy and
policy-shaping documents, as well as
global commitments. For example, in
India, these would include National
Population Policy, National Health Policy,
National Health Mission (NHM) and
Reproductive and Child Health related
policies and programmes as well as
strategic frameworks and guidelines and
documents related to existing schemes.
India’s policy environment is also
determined by its global commitments,
like those made in the SDG, FP2030 and
ICPD.
Youth champions engaging
with the Health Minister,
Bihar, to position their asks
Understanding the Environment
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Figure 3: The 5 stages of policy development
STAGE
Problem identification and agenda setting
Problem identification usually begins when an
interest group demands government action on a
problem or there is a public disagreement about
how a problem should be addressed. In this stage,
the strategic engagement tools usually used are
discussion papers, policy briefs and status reports.
Policy formation
The process of developing policies often involves
several rounds of consultations with multiple
stakeholders such as policy experts, Members of
Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and other ministers and
senior officials of relevant departments.
STAGE
STAGE
Policy adoption
The policy is enacted by national or state legislation.
STAGE
Policy implementation
The policy is brought into practice. This is the stage
of policy development that is essential for
understanding how, when and where the polices are
being implemented. It is often the stage when the
policy content and its impact may be modified
significantly.
STAGE
Policy evaluation
This is the final stage in the policy-making process.
Evaluation includes monitoring, analysis and critical
assessment of the policies and their implementation
and impact. Evaluations should be designed to help
governments implement policies in an effective and
efficient manner.
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Identifying decision makers and thought leaders
Working with the right group of decision makers and thought leaders increases the
impact of strategic engagement significantly.
Thought leaders are individuals, groups,
or organisations that are either 1)
affected by the cause, 2) affect the cause,
or 3) can extend support to inform
decision makers or are decision makers
themselves.
These thought leaders may include:
• National or local leaders (Elected
representatives) with the ability to
make or contribute to decisions on
family planning
• Key government ministries that
strategise, plan, implement and
finance family planning programmes
or have programmes that contribute
to improved access to family planning
or work with relevant communities
• Government and non-government
think tanks
• Academic institutions with public
health, women’s health, reproductive
health, social science departments
and key representatives in those
departments
• Professional bodies such as
Obstetric and Gynaecological societies
• Industrial Associations
• NGOs working on family planning and
related issues
• Private sector entities that produce
or market family planning products
or work on health or gender
equity through Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR)
• Multilateral and bilateral agencies
working on family planning
• Media, including media persons who
focus on public health and social
issues
• Alliances and coalitions focused
on family planning and reproductive
health
• Indian and global champions and
experts who write and speak and
whose opinions and thoughts on
reproductive health and family
planning are heard, respected and
valued
Refer to Resource 3 (page 35) for the
different categories of thought leaders
that you can engage with.
Use Tool 4 (page 38) to make a list
of thought leaders for your strategic
engagement.
Chapter 4 on developing
the strategic engagement
plan (page 48) will help you
use this information to map
and select your audience for
strategic engagement.
Understanding the Environment
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Tool 3:
Understanding the current status of family planning
Use the tool below to capture
information about the environment.
You will be using further tools in other
chapters to do a deep dive, but this
tool will help you get a broad overview
of the status of your issue and what
the policy environment around it
is. While some sources have been
indicated in the tool, there can be
more sources and data points that you
may need to explore.
Information
area
Demand
for family
planning
Related
health
and social
information
Data to be collected
Probable data
sources
(Refer to Resource
2 page 32 for data
sources)
• Unmet need
• National
• Population growth rates
Family Health
Survey
• Contraception prevalence rates
• Census
• Unwanted pregnancies
• Abortion
• Studies
undertaken
• Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
by NGOs/
• Desired Fertility Rate
• Available family planning
research
organisations
services
• Maternal, infant and under-five • Ministry
mortality rates
portal
• Health and development
programmes
• Gender norms
• Education levels
• Sex ratio
• Religious beliefs, that may
affect fertility, choice and
access to family planning
• Census
• Studies
undertaken
by NGOs/
research
organisations
What
What is the
information is information
available? gap?
(Use
information
gathered here
in Tool 12 page
79)
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Information
area
Data to be collected
Policies,
•
programmes, •
laws and
regulations •
•
Strategic frameworks
Scheme related documents
Guidelines
Commitments made by
government such as FP2020,
ICPD, SDGs
Key
•
stakeholders/
Thought
•
leaders
•
•
•
•
•
Available
•
resources
and gaps
•
•
National or local leaders
(Elected representatives)
Academic institutions
Think-tanks
NGOs
Private sector entities
Media
Alliances and coalitions
Existing human and financial
resources for family planning
services
Demand-and-supply analysis
Projected services and
commodity needs
Probable data
sources
(Refer to Resource
2 page 32 for data
sources)
What
What is the
information is information
available? gap?
(Use
information
gathered here
in Tool 12 page
79)
• National
Health Policy
• National
Population
Policy
• State specific
population
policies
• National
Health
Mission
(NHM) portal
• FP2020 portal
• Websites of
alliances
• Media reports
• Ministry
portal
• Studies
undertaken
by NGOs/
research
organisations
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Resource 2:
List of sources for situational assessment (India)
National Family Health Survey, India [http://rchiips.org/nfhs/]
This is a large-scale, multi-round survey
conducted in a representative sample of
households throughout India. The last
round for which data is available is NFHS-5
conducted in 2019-20. The website for NFHS
has national, state and district level
factsheets as well as national and state
reports. Below is a snapshot of the kind of
data that a state (Bihar) factsheet has:
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Family Planning 2030 [https://commitments.fp2030.org/]
FP2020, an outcome of the 2012 London
INDIA COMMITMENT
Summit on Family Planning, is a global
partnership through which 46 countries
till date have committed to ‘address the
policy, financing, delivery and socio-cultural
barriers to women accessing contraceptive
information, services and supplies.’ Each of
the countries has a country dashboard and
there is also a global dashboard that can be
India will overarch FP2020 goals to
drive access, choice and quality of
family planning services to increase
the modern contraceptive usage
from 53.1% to 54.3% and ensure
that 74% of the demand for modern
contraceptives is satisfied by 2020.
accessed on the site. With the year 2021
(Source: https://www.familyplanning2020.org/india)
at the threshold, global stakeholders are
already putting together a shared vision for 2030, that builds on the progress made so far
and underlines what remains to be achieved.
Track20 [http://track20.org/]
This project is implemented by Avenir
Health and it monitors the progress of
countries towards achieving the goals of
the global FP2020 initiative. The project
collects, analyses and uses country data
to monitor the progress it has made.
Below is a snapshot from the India page:
Understanding the Environment
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National Health Mission [https://nhm.gov.in/]
The National Health Mission portal under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare,
Government of India, includes multiple resources including policy documents that you can
access to understand the policy environment. These include:
1. National Health Policy, 2002 and 2017
2. National Population Policy, 2000
3. Family Planning Guidelines
https://nhm.gov.in/index1.php?lang=1&level=2&sublinkid=1081&lid=152
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Resource 3:
Thought leaders and reasons for engagement
National Family Health Survey, India [http://rchiips.org/nfhs/]
Over the years, Population Foundation
of India has worked with multiple
thought leaders. This has helped us
understand why these thought leaders
may be interested in engaging on family
planning issues. This resource will help
you understand why you need to involve
a particular group of thought leaders in
your strategic engagement efforts.
Category
Reasons for you to engage
with them
Their interests/benefits that
will make them willing to
engage with you
Government
ministries and
departments
(example, Ministry
of Health and Family
Welfare and related
departments, Ministry
of Women and Child
Development and
related departments,
NITI Aayog, etc.)
• Key to ensuring the solution
is integrated into relevant
policies and state/national
budgetary allocations
• Optimizing data for program
designing and monitoring
• Can contribute through
their expertise and rich
experience
• Will confirm the usefulness
of work or project findings
• Will promote wider adoption
and replication of outcomes
• Can help bring together
and involve other key
stakeholders
• Opportunity to develop
better policies based upon
scientific knowledge and
evidence
• Opportunity to better
health and family planning
outcomes in their
jurisdiction (village/block/
district/state)
• Opportunity to develop a
model village/block/district/
state
• Funding opportunities to
scale up the work
• National and international
publicity
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Category
Reasons for you to engage
with them
National or local
leaders
(example, elected
representatives
like Members of
Parliament and
Members of Legislative
Assembly)
• Work closely with regional
authorities and national
government
• Relate to citizens and
beneficiaries at the
grassroot level
• Can raise issues in the
Parliament or Assembly
Think tanks,
Academic
Institutions,
Research
Organisations
(example, Indian
Council of Medical
Research, etc.)
Private sector,
Industrial
Associations
• Can provide technical and
scientific expertise and
policy recommendations
• Have access to relevant
research results, global
findings
• Can utilise expertise to
conduct relevant research
• Support evaluation and
validation of project
outcomes
• Have funding capacity
• Work closely with regional
authorities and national
government
Their interests/benefits that
will make them willing to
engage with you
• Development of their
constituency through better
health and family planning
outcomes
• Media publicity
• Funding opportunities
through specific schemes
sponsored by Member of
Legislative Assembly Local
Area Development (MLALAD)
and Member of Parliament
Local Area Development
(MPLAD)
• Publications and
acknowledgements
• New research opportunities
• Potential collaboration
• Networking
• Utilisation of their CSR funds
• Good branding and publicity
• Scope for (i) Scaling up
of projects (ii) Venturing
into newer innovative
fields (iii) Technological
and entrepreneurial
advancements
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Category
Reasons for you to engage
with them
Their interests/benefits that
will make them willing to
engage with you
Non-
Governmental
Organisations/
Alliances and
Coalitions
(example, the
Advocating
Reproductive Choices
or ARC Coalition, etc.)
• Ensure usefulness and
relevance of family planning
projects, research and
evidence
• Help publicise evidence and
advocate for adoption of key
findings
• Inform and guide concerned
authorities
• Have greater outreach to
individuals/beneficiaries
• Networked with grassroots
level or national or global
organisations
• Interest in using new
evidence, data, practices
• Increased local publicity
through engagement
• Greater collaboration and
consensus building for
common objectives
Media
(example, national
and local newspapers;
digital news media;
news portals)
• Ensure wide distribution
of family planning project
results in multiple languages
• Support in sharing and
amplifying evidence and
data
• Are linked to citizens/
beneficiaries
• Can become a voice from
the field
• Can amplify a message/
statement to attract
attention
• Wide publicity
• Material for stories/news
Understanding the Environment
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Tool 4:
List your thought leaders
Use the tool below to make a list of
thought leaders. Start by listing broad
categories and then brainstorm to fill
in specifics for each category. Start
with a long list so that you do not miss
out on any key thought leader. If you
are part of an alliance or coalition, all
the members can be added to this list.
Make sure you ask people within your
organisation to add to the list. You will
later use power analysis to narrow
down the list and choose the audience
for engagement.
Category
Organisation/Ministry/ Company/
Autonomous Body
Name (if available/known)
National or local leaders
Government ministries
Think tanks
Academic institutions
Professional bodies
Industrial associations
Non-Governmental
Organisations
Private sector
Multilateral and bilateral
agencies
Media
Alliances and coalitions
Champions and experts
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Young girl filling a post-training feedback form
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3.Setting Goals and
Objectives
Your goals should be linked with similar initiatives at local, national, regional
and international levels, to leverage existing strategic engagement actions
and increase impact at the national and local level.
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Setting goals and objectives can be done
by asking the following questions:
• What are the problems or challenges
we are trying to address?
• What do we want to achieve?
• Can it be solved through strategic
engagement?
Analysing the issue
In the previous chapter (Chapter 2)
you focused on understanding the
environment around the issue you are
working on. In this chapter you will
narrow your focus and think about the
specifics – what is the specific problem
for which you want to undertake
strategic engagement, what are the root
causes, what are the barriers to solving
the problem and what policy-related
solution/s do you seek.
There are several ways you can analyse
the issue, but one way is through
a cause-and-effect analysis that
identifies the immediate, intermediate
and root causes of the problem.
Goals and objectives are central to
developing an impactful strategic
engagement plan because they outline
what will be achieved, how, with whom
and by when.
Use Tool 5 (page 44) to develop a problem
and solution tree.
Use Tool 6 (page 45) to prioritise potential
solutions to the problem your strategic
engagement issue is aiming to influence.
Setting Goals and Objectives
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Being SMART: Setting goals and objectives
It is important to note that goals and
objectives are not the same things. Goals
are long-term with big-picture outcomes.
Objectives are short term with concrete
statements that describe what your effort
will achieve. However, both goals and
objectives should be SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and
Time-bound). SMART can be broken down
into the following ‘WH’ questions guiding
your goals and objectives.
• What do we plan to achieve? (Specific,
Measurable)
• Who will be reached? (Attainable)
• When will the result be achieved?
(Time-bound, Realistic)
Refer to Resource 4 (page 46) to
understand SMART.
Use Tool 7 (page 47) to put together your
goals and objectives.
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CASE 2
WORKING THROUGH THE DISTRICT WORKING GROUP TO PRIORITISE
AN ISSUE AND SELECT A SMART OBJECTIVE17,18,19,20
A woman in Bihar has an average of 3.4 children in her lifetime, much higher than
the country average of 2.2 children. Most married women aged 15-49 years (77
percent) do not use any modern contraceptive method, a good 20 percentage points
higher than the country level. Moreover, there is a 21% unmet need for family
planning, which means that one-fifth of currently married women in Bihar wish to
postpone or stop childbearing but are currently not using any contraception.
Through the Advance Family Planning (AFP) project, Population Foundation of India
set up District Working Groups (DWG) in 6 districts of Bihar, including Jehanabad.
The Jehanabad DWG looked at local evidence to understand the context for family
planning and identify objectives using the SMART approach. The DWG found that
Jehanabad had high TFR (3.1) with a high unmet need of 17.5%. Female sterilisation
was the most popular method, but the services were being provided through a camp
mode where a large number of clients were sterilised within a given time frame.
The DWG realised that women were more likely to seek family planning when they
were provided with high quality services. Quality of sterilisation services could
be improved using a fixed day service (FDS) approach, which reduced and better
distributed the client load, compared to the camp mode.
This led the DWG to prioritise quality of care in family planning by moving
from camp mode to FDS for female sterilisation in all 7 blocks of the
district.
Once the objective was determined, the DWG developed a plan that listed activities,
fixed responsibilities, provided timelines and detailed outputs and outcomes, setting
the benchmarks for success.
An assessment of facilities to identify gaps in sterilisation services was followed by
strategic engagement for increased financial investment to address these gaps. The
DWG also worked with the District Health Society to empanel doctors to resolve the
shortage of human resources which limited delivery of FDS. The efforts resulted in
a 23% increase in female sterilisation in the district, compared to the same period a
year before.
17 National Family Health Survey 2015-16
18 Bihar; National Family Health Survey – 4
19 District Fact Sheet – Jehanabad. 2015-16
20 (Internal document) Singh, Sonia. Convergence for choice and quality family planning services – Advance Family Planning SMART Approach
and District Working Group Model in Bihar. Advance Family Planning. Population Foundation of India. January 2018
Setting Goals and Objectives
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Tool 5:
Problem and solution tree
Problem trees are a simple way of
analysing the issue and showing the
causes that lead to the problem.
Designing a problem tree allows you to
break down the problem and identify
the areas where you can advocate for
change21.
The tool resembles a tree. The tree
trunk in the centre shows the main
problem. The roots represent the
causes of the main problem, the tree
branches represent the barriers
and the leaves are solutions. When
identifying the causes of a problem
use the information you have gathered
using the tools from the chapter on
Understanding the Environment.
Solutions
(List ideas for how to address the root cause or the barriers – New policy?
Change in existing policy? Better implementation of policy? These
solutions will be the engagement issues that you will use in the next tool.)
Barriers
(List as many
barriers as you can
think of – social,
cultural, economic,
etc.)
Problem or main
issue
(List the main
issue/problem that
you want to
address.)
Causes
(List as many as you can think of. Continue asking ‘why’ to explore the
deeper roots of the problem.)
21 (Adapted from) Advocacy Strategy Toolkit. ACT!2015. Restless Development. March 2014
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Tool 6:
Prioritising the strategic engagement issue
Tool 5 (page 44) will likely suggest
multiple potential solutions for the
problem or challenge that you are
trying to address. But rather than
working on all the solutions, it may
be more effective to prioritise one
solution that you would like to achieve.
For example, a potential solution to
low uptake of family planning is to
engage the Ministry of Health and
Family Welfare (MoHFW) to expand
the contraceptive method choices
available to women and their partners.
Use the matrix below to prioritise your
issues and select one. Come back to
this, as required to select your next
engagement issue.
Criteria
Fill from Tool 5 page 44 (Solutions from Tool 5 become engagement
issues in this Tool)
(Rank on a scale of 1-5, 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly
agree)
Engagement Issue 1: Engagement Issue 2: Engagement Issue 3:
The issue is important to your work
The issue fits with your organisational
goal and vision
You will be able to make a degree of
impact on the issue within the time-
frame of the project
There is space for you to work on
this issue/There are not many other
players working on this issue
You have the resources to tackle this
issue – budget, human resources with
the requisite expertise, etc.
(Check Tool 1 page 18 if required)
The issue fits the organisation’s
expertise
You will be able to garner support on
this issue – from stakeholders and
thought leaders
TOTAL SCORE (out of 35)
SELECTED ISSUE
(with the maximum score put √)
Setting Goals and Objectives
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Resource 4:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound
Defining SMART
What will your strategic engagement efforts achieve?
Talk about the change you want to achieve, not about the activity
that you will do to bring about that change. The more specific your
objective, the more likely that your strategic engagement strategy
will result in your desired outcomes and impact. An example would
be aiming for the MoHFW to support inclusion of at least one
additional long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) method in the
basket of choice by the end of the next year.
How will you measure success?
Ensure the objective talks about what your result will look like. Add
descriptors – these could be quantitative or qualitative – to make
the result verifiable. An example would be aiming for 5% increase in
budget allocation for family planning in the next fiscal year. Or if you
want to reach a specific population or geography then add numbers
– example, 5 districts or reaching 3,000 newlyweds, etc.
Do you have the resources available to achieve your objectives?
Remember Tool 1 where you looked at the resources you have –
human resources, technical expertise, financial resources. Now,
in addition to that think about the time frame available and the
existing support. These will help you determine whether your
objective is attainable.
How does your objective for strategic engagement fit into your
overall goal as an organisation?
Ensure your objective is relevant and realistic – in terms of the
resources and time you have and the partnerships available, etc.
What is your timeline? By when will you complete your
objective?
These could be, for example, per your project cycle, by the end of
the year, or the project, or before the next Parliamentary session/
Budget Session of the Parliament.
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Tool 7:
Developing SMART goals and objectives
Use this tool to put together
your goal framework. Ideally, the
framework should also include
indicators or a set of measures that
will help you see whether you have
achieved your goals and objectives.
Chapter 8 on monitoring
and evaluation (page
114) will help you select
indicators. Come back to
this tool after you have
decided on monitoring and
evaluation indicators.
Goal
Use your strategic engagement issue to
define your goal – add who will bring about
change, how will the change be made and
when will it be achieved.
YOUR STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT GOAL
Objectives22
Use the pointers in Resource 4 (page 46) to
craft your SMART objective.
YOUR SMART OBJECTIVE
Indicators
22 Gillespie, D. and Fredrick, B. (2013). AFP SMART: A Guide to Quick Wins. November 2013
Setting Goals and Objectives
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4.Developing Strategic
Engagement Plan
An impactful strategic engagement plan identifies and focuses on key
stakeholders and employs multiple strategies and tactics to reach its goal.
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Now that you understand the
environment and have set your goals
and objectives, it is time to develop the
Strategic Engagement Plan. Developing
an impactful strategic engagement
plan should be framed by the following
questions:
• What are our “asks”, the changes we
are asking for?
• Who are the decision makers and
thought leaders that can help bring
the change?
• Who might oppose the change?
• How do we plan to work with each of
them?
Mapping and categorising stakeholders
The next step in your strategic
engagement effort is to understand who
the decision makers are. And then to
identify the correct thought leaders that
can help you take your message to these
decision makers. At this stage, you need
to delve deeper and build on the output
of your earlier list.
A power mapping will help narrow
your focus. It will help you identify
which stakeholders have the power to
push for policy changes – your primary
audience, as well as those who can be
engaged as allies or agents of change
– your secondary audience i.e. those
who can effect these decisions (such as
family planning experts and the media).
A mapping will also help you identify
the strengths of your other allies. Apart
from your allies, it will help identify your
opponents, i.e. those who will oppose the
change.
Use Tool 8 (page 56) to identify those that
have the power to make the change you
desire as well as those who can reach out
to these decision makers to guide and
inform them about the need for change.
Use Tool 9 (page 60) make a final list of
decision makers and thought leaders that
you will work with.
Refer to Resource 5 (page 61) for other
tools that you can use to identify thought
leaders.
Through Tool 4 (page 38) in
Chapter 2, you have already
listed the thought leaders
who are interested in the
issue or can influence it.
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CASE 3
IDENTIFYING PRIMARY & SECONDARY AUDIENCES23
Through the Realising Commitments to Family Planning (RCFP) Project, Population
Foundation of India aimed at increasing commitment for family planning with a
focus on the expansion of the basket
of contraceptive choice. A detailed
audience mapping undertaken by
us for the project showed that the
Primary audience
key stakeholders were Ministries/
Departments and Autonomous Bodies,
• Standing Committees
Members of Parliament, Media, CSOs,
Technical Bodies, the Corporate Sector
• Chief Economic Advisor
and the ones who opposed the idea.
• Ministry of Finance
The project team undertook an exercise
to further break this down to identify
two key audiences: primary audiences
and secondary audiences (see box).
Once our primary and secondary
audiences were determined, separate
strategic engagement plans were
developed for both the categories.
• Ministers of State
• Women’s Commission
Secondary audience
• Indian Medical Parliamentarians’
Forum
Keeping in mind the project objectives,
we chose to reach out to our primary
audience with evidence and data
to increase their understanding on
family planning and allied issues.
Secondary audiences were leveraged to
facilitate conversations and to amplify
messaging to key stakeholders whose
understanding was still rudimentary.
• Members of Parliament
• Legislative Assistants to MPs
• Media
• Technical Experts
• Allied Agencies example, ICMR,
DTAB
23 (Internal document) Singh, Sonia. Realising Commitments to Family Planning – Approach and Plan for year IV. Population Foundation of India.
October 2017
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Selecting your tactics
When selecting a tactic for strategic engagement, ensure you also understand the risk/
challenges associated with it so that you can prepare well.
There are many ways in which you can
guide and inform key stakeholders and
engage with your thought leaders. We
are sharing with you some tactics that
you can use. Treat each of these tactics
like a tool in your toolbox – use it as
per requirement, pick and choose and
combine them to create new ones.
A strong strategic engagement plan
employs multiple complementary tactics
to achieve its goals and objectives.
TACTICS FOR STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT
• Policy analysis and research
• Developing and disseminating
knowledge products
• Working within the system
• Face to face meetings
• Delivering presentations
• Press releases, opinion pieces
and editorials in media
• Media interviews and panel
discussions
• Leveraging social media
Young girls and women:
one of our key stakeholders
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For example, to achieve the goal of--
‘Adequate resource allocation for
ensuring comprehensive, choice-based
high-quality family planning services
in line with Government of India’s
commitments,’ three key tactics can be
applied:
• Building evidence for engagement
• Strategic engagement with leaders as
champions at the national level
• Supporting grassroots level
engagement through a convergence
model that brings stakeholders at the
district level together.
You also need to select tactics depending
upon your/your organisation’s capacity
(refer to Tool 1), experience, legal
restrictions (like the Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Amendment Act, 202024) and
the preference of your target audience.
When selecting your tactics let the
following questions guide you25:
• What are the audience’s primary
sources of information? Who or what
do they listen to? What do they read?
What appeals to them?
• What platforms are coalitions and
networks present and active in?
• What are the audience’s
characteristics? Do most belong
to a particular age/race/gender
demographic?
• What are the internal skills, capacities
and resources required to work with
the selected tactic? If they are not
available internally, how can they be
resourced?
Refer to Resource 6 (page 62) for details
on different tactics that can be used for
strategic engagement.
Use Tool 10 (page 65) for a set of 5
checklists that will help you use a specific
tactic for strategic engagement.
Refer to Resource 7 (page 70) for a list
of alliances and coalitions that you can
be a part of when you work on strategic
engagement for family planning issues.
Refer to Resource 8 (page 71) for
specific points to keep in mind when
you use social media for your strategic
engagement efforts.
24 For details on FCRA, see annexure.
25 UNICEF. Advocacy Toolkit: A guide to influencing decisions that improve children’s lives. October 2010.
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CASE 4
EVIDENCE-BASED STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT WITH KEY STAKEHOLDERS
In 2018, Population Foundation of India commissioned two research studies to
inform strategic engagement on financial investments in family planning: ‘Cost of
Inaction in Family Planning’ and ‘A Review of Planning, Budgeting and Expenditure of
Family Planning Activities under the National Health Mission’. To facilitate dialogue
on the findings, we organised a knowledge sharing roundtable with relevant
stakeholders on Prioritising Family Planning: Role of Policymakers.
As an outcome and as suggested by the participating members, joint letters were
shared with the Prime Minister and the ministers of Health and Finance with
recommendations to adopt a mission mode (like the National Health Mission)
approach for family planning through a centralised funding mechanism.
CASE 5
STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT WITH MEDIA FOR NUANCED REPORTING26
After the Bilaspur tragedy in 2014 in which 16 women lost their lives after tubectomy
related complications at a sterilisation camp in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, Population
Foundation of India led a multi-organisational fact-finding team to assess the
situation and recommend corrective actions at national and state levels. A press
conference was used as a platform to release and disseminate key findings
and recommendations to over 25 representatives from the print and electronic
media. The engagement with the media was nuanced in order to avoid media
sensationalism and ensure balanced reporting that highlighted ‘the right of women
to have access to birth control methods of their choice, including sterilisation if they
so desired, their right to space their births, their right to safe abortion and their
right to safe and quality health services that included the information and support
required to make informed choices.’
26 Negotiating the population question since1970. Monograph by Radhika Ramasubban. Population Foundation of India
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CASE 6
HOW COALITIONS CAN BUILD SUPPORT AND IMPACT POLICY
DECISIONS27
Advocating Reproductive Choices (ARC) is a national level coalition of 115
organisations working collectively to strengthen the family planning programme in
India for the last 15 years. As the secretariat of the coalition since 2015, Population
Foundation of India has played a crucial role in the operations, management and
coordination of strategic engagement efforts of ARC, under the leadership of its core
committee.
As a member of the National Task Force on injectable contraceptives, the coalition
developed briefs and letters of support and participated in the consultation meetings
organised by the MoHFW. The coalition supported MoHFW to coordinate with the
Drug Technical Advisory Board to introduce injectable contraceptives into public
health facilities under the national family planning programme.
To recommend action points and a robust roadmap for injectable roll out, ARC
members gathered insights on the implementation of injectable services. The
coalition conducted a quality assessment to understand clients and providers’
perspectives, what worked well and what implementation gaps needed to be
addressed. The study findings were shared with the Family Planning Division of
MoHFW to improve the demand and quality of injectable roll-out.
ARC has also accelerated the progress of India’s commitment to family planning as
the civil society focal point of FP2020, supporting implementation of FP2020’s action
plan and successfully leveraged collective efforts to share statements, facts and
letters against calls for two-child policies.
27 https://www.arccoalition.org/
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Preparing your strategic engagement plan
The strategic engagement plan needs to be flexible. You/your organisation should be able
to make changes to it as you move along, using it as a means to achieve your goal.
Your strategic engagement plan is based
on the insights you have gleaned so far,
connecting it to practical steps that you
need to undertake to achieve your goal.
The plan describes the details of who
will do what, when, with what budget,
etc. Keep in mind that the plan will be
dynamic, meaning that you will return to
it as you move forward in this handbook.
Use Tool 11 (page 72) to initiate work on
developing your strategic engagement
plan.
CASE 7
MULTI-STAKEHOLDER STRATEGIC ENGAGAMENT PLAN
Population Foundation of India’s work in Rajasthan aims at generating an
understanding and commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights for
young people including adolescents.
After an in-depth study of the environment and discussions with different
stakeholders, Population Foundation of India developed a framework that rested on
five key pillars:
• Working with the system
• Engaging the MPs and MLAs
• Engaging with the media
• Building a strong civil society partnership
• Engaging youth leaders and adolescents
The plan for strategic engagement contained details on the broad audience category,
the key individuals that need to be engaged with, the expected outputs, key
messages, followed by a roadmap for engagement that was further broken down to
detail the activities and tactics to be used as well as the materials required.
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Tool 8:
Power analysis
Power analysis tools can help you
answer the following questions28:
• Who has the power to improve
family planning and related
policies?
• Who can inform and guide these
decision makers?
• Who will support your strategic
engagement?
• Who will oppose your efforts?
There are different tools that you can
use to do a power analysis: three are
described below.
Tool 8a: Power Mapping
Steps:
• Using your list of thought leaders from Tool 4, place the most important decision maker(s) in
the centre of the space you will use to draw the map. These will be your target audience.
• Add the names of the other decision makers, organisations and individuals on your list of
thought leaders, grouping those that have relationships with each other.
• Draw links or arrows between the names to reflect the relationships between the thought
leaders. Specify the direction of influence (they may be one-way, or two-way). This will help you
identify which organisations and individuals are connected to multiple decision makers and
thought leaders.
28 Jacques-Edouard Tiberghien. Power Analysis Briefing: Review of tools and methods. WaterAid+FAN GTF programme. Learning Project.
November 2012. https://www.alnap.org/help-library/power-analysis-briefing-review-of-tools-and-methods
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Example29
In other departments –
Department of Youth Affairs and
Sports, Department of Women and
Child Development (ICDS, KSY,
SABLA); Department of Education
Within MoHFW –
National Mental Health
Programme; Rashtriya Bal
Swasthya Karyakram; Family
Planning; National Tobacco
Control Programme; National
AIDS Control Programme
Media
Elected
Representatives
RKSK
(MoHFW)
Civil
Society
Media
influences
Key for influencer tracking:
Civil society
influences
Elected representative
influences
Other departments
influence
Departments
within MoHFW
influence
29 (Internal document) StratComm Consulting. Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health in Rajasthan: Opinion Analysis Report. Population
Foundation of India. January 2019
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Tool 8b: Impact-Approachability Grid30
Steps:
• Draw a two-dimensional matrix (see below).
• Place the thought leaders you identified in the quadrant most relevant to them:
• Easy to approach or difficult to approach – may depend upon where they are located, are
they willing to work on your issue; will you/your organisation/the alliance you are part of
be able to reach out to them
• Low impact or high impact – how much influence they can have on the issue/policy change,
due to the position that they are in or who they know,
• You can do this for each broad category of thought leaders. For example, do this for all
national and local leaders in your list, then do it separately for academicians or champions,
then for media, etc.
• For thought leaders in each quadrant you can have a separate strategy for engagement.
Example
Try reaching out to them
and look for other thought
leaders who can help you
in building a relationship
with them.
This should be your target
audience for strategic
engagement.
Leave them out of your
strategic engagement
efforts.
Low
APPROACHABILITY
They could be your
champions. Keep them
informed. Use their
experiences to reach out
to others. Build your allies.
High
30 Katharina Habersbrunner. CLEEN Training Module: Stakeholder Mapping. Women Engage for a Common Future. Germany. 2014
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Tool 8c: Spectrum of Allies31
Steps:
• Draw a spectrum (see below).
• Using your list of thought leaders, place them in the box most relevant to them:
• Active allies – those who agree with you and are ready to act
• Passive allies – those who agree with you but are not taking any action
• Neutral – those who are neither allies nor opponents
• Passive opponents – those who disagree with you but are not stopping you from acting
• Active opponents – those who not only disagree with you but are actively acting against
you
• For each category plot thought leaders from least powerful to most powerful.
• For thought leaders in each category, you can have a separate strategy for engagement.
Example
Active
Allies
Passive
Allies
Neutral
Passive
Active
Opponents Opponents
Engage with
them; they
may help
open doors
Increase
their
knowledge;
persuade
them to work
together
Convince
them by
showing
others who
are
supporting
you
Monitor
changes in
level of
opposition
Wait and
watch
31 (Adapted from) Advocacy Strategy Toolkit. ACT!2015. Restless Development. March 2014
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Tool 9:
Audience for engagement
You listed all your thought leaders
across categories in Tool 4 and
focused the list using Tool 8 (8a, 8b
and 8c) to identify those that have
the power to make the change you
desire as well as those who can reach
out to these decision makers to guide
Category
Organisation/
Ministry/ Company/
Autonomous Body
Name
Decision makers
and inform them about the need for
change. Use this tool to make your
final list across categories, identify
specific individuals and summarise
their background. You can choose to
leave some categories blank based on
your analysis.
Background
Contact details
(where has the
person worked
in the past apart
from current
designation/
work; what is their
experience with
your issue)
Thought leaders
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Resource 5:
Power mapping tools
Identifying and managing internal and external stakeholder interests. Health Knowledge.
Education, CPD and Revalidation from PHAST.
https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/organisation-management/5b-
understanding-ofs/managing-internal-external-stakeholders
Tiberghien, J E. Power Analysis Briefing Review of Tools and Methods. November 2012
https://www.alnap.org/help-library/power-analysis-briefing-review-of-tools-and-methods
The Advocacy Sourcebook. WaterAid. 2007 (see section on identifying targets)
https://www.joinforwater.ngo/sites/default/files/library_assets/W_PRA_E4_advocacy_
sourcebook.pdf
Enrique Mendizabal. The Alignment, Interest and Influence Matrix (AIIM). Overseas
Development Institute. November 2010
https://odi.org/en/publications/the-alignment-interest-and-influence-matrix-aiim-guidance-
note/
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Resource 6:
Tactics for strategic engagement and considerations for selection
This resource details some tactics that
you can use for strategic engagement.
This is in no way an exhaustive list, but it
includes examples of tactics that we have
used and found helpful. We have found it
preferable to use a combination of tactics
and approaches to engage with particular
audiences.
Tactic
Approaches/types Advantages
Challenges
Alliance
building
• Local
• State-level
• National
• Regional
• Global
• Cross-sectoral
Working with other like-
minded organisations will
amplify your voice.
Provide you with the
support for skills/resources
that you/your organisation
may not currently have.
Useful when you/your
organisation does not have
enough reach; alliances and
networks have wider reach.
Improves access to decision
makers as different
member organisations may
have relationships with
different decision makers.
Reduces duplication of
efforts.
Coordination
between
members may
be a challenge.
Decision
making may
not be smooth
and may lead
to tension
between
members.
There might be
disagreement
over taking
credit for work
done.
Engaging
champions and
spokespersons
• Celebrities
• Technical
experts
• Positive
deviant32
stories
Influential people speaking
on your issue will increase
reach.
Helps draw attention to the
issue due to celebrity value.
Negative
coverage of
the celebrity
can deflect
attention from
your issue.
32 In any community there are people who are able to adopt behaviours or find solutions to their problems even though they face similar
challenges as their peers and also do not have any extra resources for their solution. These individuals are referred to as positive deviants.
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Also includes voices from
the field to showcase
stories of those who have
been impacted by the
policy.
Creates an emotional
connect with the issue.
Technical experts provide
credibility.
Media
engagement
• One-on-one
meetings
• Seminars/
roundtables
• Press
conferences
• Study tours
• Sensitisation
workshops
• Media tools
like Opinion
Editorials,
Press Release,
etc.
• Sharing
evidence and
knowledge
products
Ensures coverage of your
issue through features,
articles and opinion pieces
in newspapers and digital
news platforms, radio etc.
Can inform public
perception.
Issues attracting media
coverage serve as a trigger
for action at the policy level.
News and broadcast media
still retain high credibility.
Initiating and
sustaining
media attention
is often a
challenge given
the nature
of the media
sector.
Attention span
is short and
there are many
competing
priorities for
news agencies.
They may also
cover your
opponents’
point of view.
Engaging
• One-on-one
national and
meetings
local leaders
• Micro and
(elected
small group
representatives)
meetings
• Large
meetings and
roundtables
Face-to-face meetings help
inform policy makers on
your issue.
Get to know their interest,
inclination to support your
cause, etc.
Fatigue as
one policy
maker may
be contacted
multiple times
for the same
agenda or
a different
agenda.
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Tactic
Social media
Approaches/ Types Advantages
Challenges
• Study
tours and
conferences
(national and
international)
• Facebook live
sessions
• Presentations
to
parliamentary
fora or
committees.
Engagement
with research
aides and
office staff
Opportunities for cross-
learning within and outside
the country.
Helps draw attention to the
issue’s importance to the
public.
• Updates
• Campaigns
• Event/
publication
launches
• Data sharing
Inform as well as mobilise
support for a cause.
Opportunity to reach large
numbers faster.
Direct engagement with the
audiences.
Awareness on
what platform
to use when
and with which
audience.
May lead to
spreading
yourself too
thin and not
having actual
engagement.
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Tool 10:
Checklists for using tactics
Now that we have understood the
pros and cons of using each tactic, it
is also important to understand what
to keep in mind when using a specific
tactic. The checklists in this tool
provide you an overview of what you
should do when you decide to adopt
a specific tactic for your strategic
engagement.
Checklist 10a: Strategic engagement with national and local leaders (elected representatives)
1
Use Tool 9 (page 60) for the list of national and local leaders that you would like to engage
with.
2
Do your homework – know more about them, what are the issues that they support, why,
actions they took in the past related to the issue in question, what appeals to their heart,
what appeals to their head.
There are different ways in which you could know more about them:
• Read about them in the media
• Use available sources like https://www.prsindia.org/ that already tracks the functioning
of the Indian Parliament and works with Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members
of Legislative Assembly (MLAs)
• Talk to people who have worked with them in the past or are currently working with
them
3
Know about their constituency and the work they have done there. It helps if you
can connect your issue with a need within their constituency. For example, is their
constituency/district/state an outlier on any of the indicators like vasectomy, female
literacy, need for family planning, etc.
4
Map opportunities for interacting with them:
• When parliament is in session – one-on-one meetings or small meetings
• During a conference
• In a Standing Committee meeting
• In times of emergencies like COVID-19, use virtual platforms – emails, webinars, etc.
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Checklist 10a: Strategic engagement with national and local leaders (elected representatives)
5
Prepare. You might just get some time with your chosen MP or MLA, so make it count.
Be ready with data, to showcase why they need to engage with the issue and what you
want from them.
Chapter 6 (page 84) will help you with tips on getting your message right.
6
Make a kit with infographics, data from their constituency, snapshot of what you want
them to do.
Chapter 6 (page 84) provides you with an overview of what this kit could look like.
7
Use the support of a champion – this could be another elected representative or a
technical expert or anyone else who has the ear of your chosen MP/MLA. Once again use
Tool 9 (page 60) for your list of allies.
8
Follow-up a meeting. Never leave it hanging. Send a thank you mail/message, provide the
elected representative with the information they wanted and help them move on to the
next step as decided in your meeting.
9
Support them with data when they talk about your issue on different platforms.
10 Monitor their support. Organise another meeting, provide more information, or have an
ally reinforce your message.
Checklist 10b: Strategic engagement with media
1
Use Tool 9 (page 60) for the list of media houses/journalists that you would like to engage
with.
2
Do your homework – review how much coverage they have of your issue, identify engage-
ment with your issue.
Review of coverage will also reveal active voices/champions – those who support your is-
sue – as well as opponents – those who are against your issue. Use this during your strate-
gic engagement plan.
3
Map opportunities for interacting with them:
• One-on-one meetings
• Media workshops
• In times of emergencies like COVID-19, use virtual platforms – emails, webinars, etc.
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4
Prepare. Be ready with data to showcase why they need to engage with the issue and what
you want from them.
Chapter 6 (page 84) will help you with tips on getting your message right.
5
Make a kit with infographics, human stories, a snapshot of what you want them to do.
Chapter 6 (page 84) provides you with an overview of what this kit could look like.
6
Prepare your spokespersons and champions before they interact with the media.
7
Follow-up a meeting. Never leave it hanging. Send a thank you mail/message, provide the
journalist with the information they wanted and help them move on to the next step as
decided in your meeting.
8
Plug-in your information – use Press Releases, Opinion Editorials, etc. Plan and support
feature stories. Be part of panel discussions in the media.
9
Be available. Support them with data when they want to write about your issue. Arrange
for field visits, if required.
10 Monitor their support. Organise another meeting, provide more information, or have an
ally reinforce your message.
Checklist 10c: Strategic engagement with champions
1
Use Tool 9 (page 60) for the list of champions that you would like to engage with. Also, use
your media coverage review to identify your champions.
2
Do your homework – know more about them, what are the issues that they support, why,
actions they took in the past related to the issue in question, what appeals to their heart,
what appeals to their head.
3
Map opportunities for interacting with them.
4
Prepare tailor-made pitches for your champions – what will appeal to them.
Chapter 6 (page 84) will help you with tips on getting your message right.
5
Amplify the voice of your champion by facilitating increased interactions/engagements.
6
Be available to them.
7
Monitor their support. Organise another meeting, provide more information, or have an
ally reinforce your message.
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Checklist 10d: Strategic engagement with alliances/networks
1
Use Tool 9 (page 60) for the list of alliances/networks that you would like to engage with.
Use Resource 7 (page 70) for a list of alliances that you can be a part of.
2
Do your homework – know more about them, who are the members, what do they stand
for, who are the people you know, what is the credibility of the alliance/network/individual,
what is their relationship with the policy makers.
3
Meet alliance/network members and discuss your issue with them.
4
If you are building a new alliance, then create a core committee/steering committee for
instituting processes and structures within the alliance.
Ensure the following:
• Keep steering committee informed about the progress.
• Seek the support of members when stuck.
• Have a clear decision-making process in place.
5
Enumerate responsibilities of alliance members. Make an action plan.
6
Do periodic reviews.
7
Monitor the work of the alliance and organise more meeting or provide more information
when needed.
Checklist 10e: Strategic engagement using social media
1
Define what you want to achieve using social media.
2
Choose your social media platform. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. Pick
the one most relevant to you; do not spread yourself too thin.
See Resource 8 (71) on tips for using different types of social media platforms.
3
Look at the time and resources you have. Using social media effectively is not simple - it
will require constant engagement. Take it up only if you think you can invest time in it.
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4
Look at where your audience is. For example, national and local leaders have social media
accounts on Twitter:
• Identify the Twitter handles of decision makers and thought leaders – individuals and
organisations.
• Follow them to understand what they talk about and how they engage.
5
Develop your social media content and plan – you can do a broad monthly plan, with
specifics for each week. Make sure you note the different days that are of significance.
6
Develop your content. Use stories, data, videos, images, etc.
Chapter 6 (page 84) will help you with tips on getting your message right.
7
Follow certain hashtags (#) that are popular as well as relevant.
8
Implement your social media plan. For example, if we take the above example of using
Twitter:
• Tweet to the thought leaders and decision makers that you want to get attention of.
Make sure you mention them by using their Twitter handles.
• Use champions and other allies to tweet about your issue too.
• Retweet relevant tweets – partner tweets relevant to your issue, tweets of thought
leaders and decision makers.
9
Monitor your engagement – what has the audience responded to most?
10 Revamp your plan at strategic times to make sure you are in line with what’s trending.
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Resource 7:
List of alliances, coalitions, networks
Advocating Reproductive Choices (ARC)
A coalition of more than 115 civil society organisations working in the field of sexual and
reproductive health.
https://www.arccoalition.org/
Implementing Best Practices (IBP) network
IBP is a partnership by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
With over 80-member organisations IBP convenes partners to share best practices,
experiences and tools to support family planning and reproductive health programming.
https://ibpnetwork.org/
International Youth Alliance for Family Planning (IYAFP)
IYAFP is an alliance of young individuals, youth associations, organisations and
communities with a common mission to support the provision of comprehensive
reproductive health care services with a particular focus on family planning for youth.
http://iyafp.org/
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Resource 8:
Tips on using social media platforms
Some tips to remember when you use
social media platforms33:
• Like and follow the pages of your
thought leaders and decision makers.
• Make every post count – do not go
overboard, be strategic in the number
of posts you make.
• Keep a consistent look and feel across
different social media platforms.
• Along with a content plan also have
a crisis response plan. Be clear about
what your response will be, who will it
come from, etc.
Chapter 7 (page 104) looks
at dos and don’ts for crisis
management.
Facebook
• Use images and videos.
They attract engagement.
• Keep the text short and simple.
• Tell people about what you are
doing by sharing stories from your
field.
• Tag your thought leaders and
decision makers to relevant posts.
Twitter
• If you are creating a new
hashtag, make sure it has
not been used before.
• Build a relationship through
tweeting and retweeting; do not
restrict to tweeting on your agenda
only.
Instagram
• Use your photos and
videos. It will make a
difference.
• Tag your thought leaders and
decision makers to relevant posts.
• Use location if you are talking about
an event.
• Run campaigns
• Use celebrity endorsements
• Package data creatively
• Share/Repost
• Celebrate days of significance
• Share stories of change
33 Social Media Toolkit. American Library Association. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/social-media
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Tool 11:
Strategic engagement plan
While you will start developing your plan here, you will need to return to it after
reviewing subsequent chapters.
Strategic engage-
ment objective
(Refer to Resource
2 page 32 for data
sources)
Audience
(From Tool 9 page
60 – decision makers
and thought leaders/
messengers)
Key ask/message
(From Tool 13 page 91)
Activities
(Choose from Resource
6 page 62 and break it
down)
Channels/Products
(From Tool 14 page 92)
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Cost
(Estimate the cost of
engaging and developing
the products for
engagement)
Indicators
(From Tool 17 page 134)
Timeline
(When will the activity
happen)
Responsibility
(Who is responsible to
undertake this – within
your organisation or
alliance)
Review
(When will you check
progress)
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5.Collecting and
Generating Evidence
Strategic engagement plans should be driven by evidence that show why
change needs to happen.
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At each step of the way, strategic
engagement should be driven by
evidence. A narrative that is convincing
and compelling will encourage decision
makers to take the desired action. The
following questions can frame how you
think about collecting and generating
evidence for strategic engagement:
• What evidence is available to support
your ask, your message about what
needs to change?
• What additional research do you need
to undertake?
Building strategic engagement around
scientific evidence creates compelling
asks.
Consider the following two statements.
Which is more compelling?
“India is going through a population
explosion and this calls for a population
control policy.”
“As India’s fertility level is 2.2, which
is near the replacement level of 2.1,
India is not experiencing a population
explosion. But there is a need for greater
investments in family planning to meet
the unmet need of close to 30 million
women in the reproductive age to
stabilise the population.”
For policy makers and many other
thought leaders, the second statement
will be more compelling because it is
driven by credible evidence.
Identifying key data
Evidence from large scale surveys
is preferred because the rigorous
methodology adds credibility. However,
this can also be complemented with
evidence generated through policy
reviews, landscape assessments and
qualitative approaches (for example, from
key informants: government officials,
health service providers, CSOs, clients/
beneficiaries). People engaged in strategic
engagement should keep themselves
updated on the existing and new research
on family planning and be familiar
with existing evidence used for their
approaches.
Serves dual purpose
Collecting and analysing evidence can
also serve another important function.
Consulting government officials, subject
experts and CSOs is a good way to inform
them about the issue, your strategic
engagement plan and to initiate buy-in
from potential allies.
Youth champion conducting
a session on menstrual health
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Building evidence
Evidence helps increase knowledge and understanding of the issue, clarify myths and
misconceptions, demonstrate the impact of investing in family planning and reflect
everyday realities, all of which inform policies and programmes.
When you look at existing data, you may
see gaps. For example, is there data on
the knowledge and behaviours of women,
men and adolescent boys and girls and
young people related to family planning?
Is there information on the availability,
affordability and quality of family
planning services? Is there information
on how health and other development
programmes are impacting the availability
and use of family planning? Is there
evidence on the impact of family planning
policies (or the lack of policies) on health
and well-being in a specific district?
In Tool 3 (page 30) you
identified information gaps.
This will help you decide
what evidence you need to
generate.
Use Tool 12 (page 79) to plan your
research.
Refer to Resource 9 (page 80) for some
key evidence developed by Population
Foundation of India that you can use for
your strategic engagement.
An important aspect of collecting and
generating evidence is understanding the
importance of cross-sectoral data. Data
on maternal and child health or women’s
labour force participation for example,
can be useful in advocating for family
planning.
You will use the evidence you
collect or generate using Tool
12 (page 79) to craft effective
messages and products in
Chapter 6 (page 84).
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CASE 10
BUILDING EVIDENCE FOR CHANGE34
Population Foundation of India commissioned a study on the “Cost of Inaction in
Family Planning in India: An Analysis of Health and Economic Implications (COI)” to
highlight the consequences of skewed investments in family planning. The study
projects a policy scenario where family planning programmes are implemented to
their full extent and estimates the potential costs and benefits to the nation over the
course of 15 years, from 2016-2031, by comparing it with the current scenario.
The key findings of the study focus on demographic and health consequences,
economic gains from increased family planning investments, budgetary savings
to the government and savings on out-of-pocket expenditure to households. The
study findings were released in New Delhi in October 2018, followed by further
dissemination at the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) in Kigali,
Rwanda in November 2018. Since its launch, the findings of the study have been
circulated far and wide and have played a major role in strategic engagement. They
have been used extensively for parliamentary engagement, media articles, interviews
and presentations to donors and government officials alike. The study report can be
accessed at:
https://populationfoundation.in/cost-of-inaction-policy-brief/
34 (Internal document) StratComm Consulting. Leading the way: Population Foundation of India’s advocacy journey from 2014-2019. Population
Foundation of India. June 2019
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Using cross-sectoral data
You may find that decision makers
prioritise other issues over family
planning. For example, policy makers
in health may be grappling with the
question: “Is family planning more
important than maternal deaths or
noncommunicable diseases such as
diabetes?” Rather than competing with
other health priorities, think about how
you can position your family planning
“asks” in a way that also helps achieve
other priorities. Frame your strategic
engagement messages in the context of
achieving multiple development goals,
achieving both family planning and other
health and development outcomes.
For example, increased access to family
planning contributes to lower maternal
and child mortality, increased education
and family income, greater economic
growth and women’s empowerment and
gender equality.
To identify shared goals and objectives,
leverage the cross-sectoral data you
have collected on issues like household
incomes, maternal deaths and child
marriage to understand where to position
your asks. You can do this by building off
the following questions:
• How does family planning help
address other problems such as
maternal deaths, household incomes?
• Can family planning contribute to
economic growth? If so, how?
Similarly, you can look at other factors
– like education and age at marriage –
and talk about how they impact family
planning to find common ground with
other sectors.
Refer to Resource 10 (page 81) for a
snapshot on the linkages that family
planning has with other issues.
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Tool 12:
Planning your research
Your strategic engagement issue
(From Tool 6 page 45)
Current data available
(Use Tool 3 page 30)
What are the gaps?
(Use Tool 3 page 30)
What questions do I need to ask to address the gaps?
Who do I need to speak with to get the answers?
How will I ask those questions? What research
methods will I use?
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Resource 9:
Some key evidence for use
Since it was founded, Population
Foundation of India has focused on
building evidence and disseminating it
to decision makers and thought leaders
through simple and attractive knowledge
products. These are available on the
organisation’s website.
Chapter 7 (page 104)
includes infographics,
factsheets and other
products that Population
Foundation of India has used
in its strategic engagement
work.
Resource requirements to meet India’s FP2020 commitments
The study examines current trends in family planning services in addition to a state-wise
analysis of the gap in family planning services.
https://populationfoundation.in/resource-requirement-to-meet-indias-fp2020-commitments/
Cost of Inaction in Family Planning in India: An Analysis of Health and Economic
Implications
The study projects a policy scenario where family planning programmes are implemented
to their full extent and estimates the potential costs and benefits to the nation over 15
years, from 2016-2031, by comparing it with the current scenario.
https://populationfoundation.in/cost-of-inaction-policy-brief/
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Resource 10:
Family planning and related factors
When looking at cross-sectoral data you
can look at the impact family planning
has at each level – individual, household,
community/country or global35. This
will also help you highlight how family
planning can help policy makers achieve
multiple social and economic goals.
Figure 4: Family planning and related factors
Individual
Empowering women – if and when to have children, how many, delay
pregnancy, pursue education, employment
Saving women’s lives – avoid unwanted pregnancies, reduce risk of
maternal mortality, avoid unsafe abortions
Improving infant and child health – avoid ill-timed pregnancies and
births and hence infant mortality, reducing risk of low birth weight
Household
Increasing household savings
Increasing investment in individual
children – children in smaller families are
better educated, healthier, receive more
attention, stay longer in school
Increasing work productivity, in particular
female work participation
Community/Country
Demographic dividend (Fewer children,
large number of working adults), cycle of
growth
Domestic savings on infrastructure in
health and education
Reducing poverty and accelerating the
demographic transition
High return on investment
Global
Slowing down population growth and reducing pressure on the
environment and natural resources
Making progress towards a sustainable human population
35 Grant, C. (2016) Benefits of investing in family planning. K4D Helpdesk Research Report. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.
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You can also look at specific benefits of
family planning as under36:
• Maternal health – reduces maternal
deaths, improves nutrition
• Unsafe abortion – prevents unwanted
pregnancies and unsafe abortion
• Infant and child health – helps space
births, results in better health for the
mother and child
• Adolescent health – reduces unwanted
pregnancies, reduces mortality of
young mothers
• Economic benefits – increases
household incomes, lowers the
number of children which increases
investment in each child and leads
to further rising income, increased
labour force participation by women
and large savings in health and
education sector
• Women’s rights, empowerment and
gender equality – improves family
decision-making, participation in the
workforce, greater social participation
• Climate change – reduces pressure on
scarce natural resource
36 Department for International Development (DFID) and UK Aid. Improving Reproductive, Maternal and Newborn Health: Reducing Unintended
Pregnancies – Evidence Overview. A working paper (Version 1.0). 31 December 2010.
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Empowering girls to take action
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6.Strategic
Communications
The aim of strategic communications is to inform, persuade and support
decision makers and thought leaders to action.
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Developing impactful strategic
communications can be framed by the
following questions:
• What are your core narratives or
messages?
• What tools do you use to
communicate our narratives?
• Who are your champions?
Here are several important points to keep
in mind as you develop your strategic
communications:
• Use the principle of KISS – Keep It
Short and Simple.
• Prepare brief and clear statements
that translate any sector-specific
knowledge or jargon into easy-to-
understand information.
• Tailor your messages according to the
intended audience.
• The tactics and tools you use to
communicate with your decision
makers and thought leaders will vary
depending on the audience.
• Strong messengers improve
engagement with your audience.
Drafting the key message
Key messages are not slogans or taglines or actual communication that go on a material,
but a guide for developing the materials and positioning of content
Start with a primary message but move
on to developing specific secondary
messages for each audience. The primary
message is a ‘statement of change you
want to bring about’ and is based on your
understanding of the environment and
your audience.
For example, a primary message
for Population Foundation of India’s
Rajasthan project was: Every fourth
person in Rajasthan is an adolescent.
During this important developmental
stage of physical and psychological
changes, adolescents need access to
information and services in a supportive
environment. Strengthening adolescent
and youth sexual and reproductive health
and rights policies and programmes will
empower the adolescents in the state
and improve their access to quality health
and allied services. Healthy and informed
adolescents will create healthy and
informed adults37!
Keeping the primary message in mind,
secondary key messages will change
depending on your target audience and
the action you want them to take – some
may need to make changes to a policy,
some may need to guide and inform the
decision makers to make changes to a
policy, some may voice the concerns of
those most affected by the policy, etc.
The secondary key messages for each
audience will take into consideration the
37 (Internal document) StratComm Consulting. Strategic Advocacy Framework 2019-2021. Population Foundation of India. April 2019
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answers to two key questions that most
thought leaders ask:
• ‘What’s in it for me?’
• ‘What exactly can I do?’
For example, for the same project
in Rajasthan, the team looked at the
following message for the Department
of Education: As per the Annual Status
of Education Report, in 2018, 20 percent
of girls aged 15-16 years were out of
school or had dropped out. Changes
during puberty and menstruation are
common reasons why adolescent girls
drop out of schools. Providing them
accurate information, access to facilities
and a supportive environment can help
keep the girls in school. Comprehensive
sexuality education can help make this
possible!
Refer to Resource 11 (page 89) for
different ways in which you can draft your
message.
Use Tool 13 (page 95) to develop your
primary and secondary messages.
Testing the message
It is also important to test your message.
You can test the message in two ways:
• Work with someone from your
organisation or an ally to test the
message that you have developed by
doing a practice session. One person
can act as the decision maker/thought
leader and the other can engage with
them, using the message developed.
• Test out the messages with some
thought leaders who are your allies
before you move on to talking to your
target audience.
Revisit your message Tool 13
(page 91) and make changes
as required to strengthen
your message.
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Identifying the messenger
The impact of messages is heavily tied to
the person or organisation delivering it.
Messages that have a strong impact, that
leave positive impressions and are easy to
remember, are often due to our opinions
of the messenger. That is why it is critical
to identify the most suitable messenger
for each of your target audiences. For
example, when it comes to increasing
budgetary allocations for family planning,
the Minister of Finance may listen to the
Health Minister, Members of Parliament,
the recommendation of the Stating
Committee or subject experts.
The right message delivered through the
wrong messenger can sometimes yield
no result. A messenger is as important
as the message itself in strategic
engagement.
Use Tool 9 (page 60) to
identify your messengers –
those who can reach out to
the decision makers.
Developing strategic engagement products
The right message needs to be delivered through the right medium at the right time to
yield results.
To decide which product to use to
share your message in your strategic
engagement plan, consider these factors:
Audience: Some formats will be more
effective and appropriate for specific
audiences. For example, high-level
policymakers may be more responsive to
a briefing packet or fact sheets because
they have little time, while a PowerPoint
presentation may be more effective in an
open discussion at a forum.
Cost: Some media requires significant
resources. A fact sheet or briefing note
may be less expensive than mass media
campaigns.
Risk: Family planning is often a sensitive
topic. Public debates and live forums
can turn into “heated” events. Risk can
be managed through careful planning,
selection of speakers and rehearsals.
Visibility: Your choice of medium
can also maximise your ability to raise
visibility. For example, holding an event
where a celebrity or a high-ranking public
official is in attendance may help promote
your message more effectively.
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Use Tool 14 (page 92) to choose the right
tactic for your strategic engagement.
Refer to Resource 12 (page 93) for tips on
developing your strategic engagement
products.
Refer to Resource 13 (page 95) for a
set of strategic engagement products
that Population Foundation of India has
developed.
Refer to Resource 14 (page 98) for tips on
digital media engagement.
Refer to Resource 15 (page 102) for a
snapshot of what a strategic engagement
handbook should include.
In Chapter 7 (page 104) you
will look at how to handle a
crisis.
STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT PRODUCTS
• PowerPoint presentations
• Press releases
• Opinion editorials
• Fact sheets
• Policy briefs
• Infographics
• Letter
• Leaflet
• Poster
• Videos
• Reports
• Social media posts
• Talking points for champions
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Resource 11:
Drafting your messages
There are different ways in which you
can draft your message, focusing on
the target audience and what you want
them to do. Some messages focus on the
rational side by presenting evidence while
some focus on the emotional side by
presenting evocative stories. Choose what
works best for your target audience.
Resource 11a: The Advance Family Planning five-point message box38
• Fill the five-point message box to include the decision maker, what is her/his core
concern, what could be the objection to the issue you are advocating for, what is your
ask and for what end result.
• The key message = SMART ask (box 4) + To what end (box 5).
2.
Decision
maker’s Core
Concern:
3.
Objection
1.
Decision maker
Name:
5.
To What End
4.
SMART Ask
Example:
The MoHFW (decision maker) is responsible for improving the availability and use of family
planning (core concern) but has prioritised other health issues over family (objection).
The strategic engagement message asks them to create a separate department for family
planning headed by an Additional Secretary and a dedicated central budget by 2022
(SMART ask). This will help the Ministry increase the Modern Contraceptive Prevalence
Rate (mCPR) and meet the FP2020 commitments (to what end?).
38 Gillespie, D. and Fredrick, B. (2013). AFP SMART: A Guide to Quick Wins. November 2013
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Resource 11b: The one-minute message39
• Sometimes we might get a short time in which we need to talk about our issue. During
such times, it is good to have a one-minute message or ‘elevator pitch’.
• Key message = Statement + Evidence + Example + Desired policy action
Example:
The Lancet study published last week shows that there will be XX million unintended
pregnancies in India due to the COVID-19 lockdown (statement with evidence). Nearly
XXX women in our intervention districts in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have
shared that they are not getting contraceptives due to lockdown and are at the risk of
getting pregnant (example). Please make family planning an essential non-COVID-19
service so that all women are able to access contraceptives, either at a facility or at home
through ASHAs (desired action).
39 Leading Voices in Securing Reproductive Health Supplies: An Advocacy Guide and Toolkit. Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. https://www.
rhsupplies.org/uploads/tx_rhscpublications/673_1_The_Advocacy_Guide_and_Toolkit_6_2009.pdf
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Tool 13:
Developing the key message
Your primary message
(Example: Every fourth person in Rajasthan is an
adolescent. During this important developmental
stage of physical and psychological changes,
adolescents need access to information and
services in a supportive environment. Strengthening
adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health
and rights policies and programmes will empower
the adolescents in the state and improve their access
to quality health and allied services. Healthy and
informed adolescents will create healthy and informed
adults!)
Your secondary messages
(Example: For the Department of Education – As per
the Annual Status of Education Report, in 2018, 20
percent of girls aged 15-16 years were out of school
or had dropped out. Changes during puberty and
menstruation are common reasons why adolescent
girls drop out of schools. Providing them accurate
information, access to facilities and a supportive
environment can help keep the girls in school.
Comprehensive sexuality education can help make
this possible!)
Ask yourself:
• Does the message include critical information required?
• Is the evidence used correct?
• Does the message speak to the audience’s interest?
• Does it position your goal as achievable?
• Does it suggest a solution?
• Is there a clear call to action?
• Is it easy to understand?
• Is it crisp?
• Is it free of jargon?
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Tool 14:
Choosing the right products
Question
How much time does your audience
have?
Example
Will they give you 10 minutes to make your
case? In that case, speak to them and leave
behind an infographic or brief.
Is this form comfortable for your
audience?
Local leaders may prefer a 1-page overview
rather than a longer report.
Can you or your strategic partner
develop it in-house?
If not, rethink as the time and energy you
spend in developing it may be spent in an
actual engagement.
Do you have the budget to develop the
product?
Try no cost or low-cost products before you
set aside budgets or ask for allocation of
budgets to develop new materials.
Is the product suitable for the message? Data is best shown through an infographic,
human stories through a video, etc.
Will there be constraints on using the
product?
You might choose a video but realise that
there is no space to show it in a govern-
ment office.
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Resource 12:
Develop
audience-wise
products
Tips for developing products
Make sure to consider the background of your audience when
presenting information so that you can ensure maximum impact on
the target group and increase the likelihood of them taking the action
requested.
Infographics and interactive videos and movies can make information
more accessible and engaging to a wider audience.
Ensure a
common visual
identity
If you have a branding guideline – specific colours, font, imagery, etc.
– use that across all products to help people remember the message.
If you want to use a campaign theme, make sure you develop a
simple branding guideline – what colour to use, which logos to be
put up, etc. – so that anyone working on the campaign uses that
guideline.
do this especially if you are working as an alliance so that your
products speak one common voice.
You can take it a step forward and develop a kit – with content,
photos, etc. – so that your partners and thought leaders can use it as
is.
An example of such a resource is this campaign site by
EngenderHealth:
http://www.engenderhealth.org/wtfp/index.php
Use compelling
data
Data and evidence should be the basis for any product you build, as
they will help you describe the issue and the impact of the change
you are asking for.
Use evidence from large-scale data sources that are considered
credible.
It is important to select the most persuasive point of information
instead of including many moderately impactful ones.
Revisit the information you collected in Chapter 5, Collecting and
Generating Evidence (page 74).
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Weave
storytelling
Visualise data
While data talks to the head, stories talk to the heart!
Stories will help your decision makers and thought leaders visualise
impact. These can be stories of change from your field or stories
from other regions or even, countries. Stories can be written or in
audio-visual form.
Examples of such stories can be found on the People’s Archive of
Rural India (PARI) website:
https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/pari-series-on-womens-health/
Not everyone is well-versed with reading data - it can appear
overwhelming. Also, some may not have the time to read your
detailed report.
Visualising your data will make it easy to understand, appealing and
simple to connect with.
See different examples of how you can visualise data here: https://
datavizproject.com/
Use free tools like Canva to make your data visually appealing:
https://www.canva.com/learn/best-infographics/
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Resource 13:
Population Foundation of India’s strategic engagement products
Infographics and Factsheets
Population Foundation of India has
developed a range of knowledge
products for engagement with thought
leaders such as the parliamentarians,
media, CSOs, government ministries and
departments. Over the years, we have
developed visually attractive products
using publicly available data and evidence
or data from the studies we have
commissioned.
Refer to Resource 9 (page 80)
for policy briefs.
Evidence on contraceptive method mix
in developing countries: South and South-East Asia
Why Method Mix Matters?
As per a 2013 study*, international data over 27 years show that
as an additional contraceptive method became available to most
of the population, overall modern contraceptive use rose. The
addition of one method available to at least half of the population
correlates to an increase in use of modern contraceptives by 4 - 8
percentage points.
Based on the trends observed in the cited study, the graphic is
a projection of the rise in modern contraceptive prevalence rate
(mCPR) in India as the number of methods available increase.
This estimation is founded on the mCPR of 47.8 from the
National Family Health Survey - 4 (NFHS-4). It also reflects the
consequences of inaction in terms of the number of choices
available on contraceptive methods, as India’s mCPR could have
been 59.8% in 2015 – 16 if eight methods had been available.
Method Mix Scenario
47.8%
51.8%
55.8%
5
6
7
Number of methods
59.8%
*Source: “Use of Modern Contraception
increases when more methods become
available: analysis of evidence from
8
1982-2009”, John Ross and John Stover,
Global Health: Science and Practice 2013,
Volume 1, Number 2
Limiting method
Spacing method
Male
Female
Sterilisation Sterilisation
Injectable Subdermal
Pill
Contraceptive Contraceptive
Implants
Intrauterine
Device (IUD)
Condom
Other Modern
Methods
* While data is available from the National Family
Health Survey (NFHS) 4 for five methods, in March
2016, India added three more methods to its family
planning programme. Therefore currently there are
a total of eight methods available.
Source: For all countries except India: FP2020 Core
Indicator Summary Sheet: 2016
11.9
1.1
8.5
2.2
Bangladesh
23
mCPR 55.6%
8.4
10.9
5.7
11.5
19.3
Bhutan
0.2
mCPR 63.9%
11.72
3.14
8.58
0.63
India
mCPR 47.8%
3.2
50.1
No. of Methods : 7
44.1
No. of Methods : 7
75.31
No. of Methods : 5* | NFHS - 4
7.5
2.6
8.1
6.4 0.2
Indonesia
mCPR 59.1%
45.1
22.6
7.5
No. of Methods : 7+
7.8 0.2
3.6
10
38.1
2.8
Nepal
mCPR 49%
27.5
10
No. of Methods : 7+
10.4
12
32.1
Sri Lanka
mCPR 56.1%
15
1.3
0.6
28.5
No. of Methods : 7
B-28, Qutab, Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110016, India
Web: www.populationfoundation.in | Email: info@populationfoundation.in
Download here:
https://populationfoundation.in/wp-content/
uploads/2020/04/Fileattached-1513326457-
Infographic.pdf
INDIA ACCOUNTED FOR 15% (45,000) OF ALL MATERNAL DEATHS (303,000) WORLDWIDE IN 2015 (ESTIMATED)*
1 Data from: Ahmed, Saifuddin, Qingfeng Li, Liu, Amy O Tsui, “Maternal deaths averted by contraceptive use: An analysis of 172 countries.” Lancet, Family Planning, July 2012.
Susheela Singh et al., Barriers to Safe Motherhood in India, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2009.
Sample Registration System, 2013, Registrar General of India, Maternal Mortality in India, MDG analysis provided by USAID; Health Policy Initiative Project.
* Source: Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015 (estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank group and the United Nations Population Division.
Download here:
https://populationfoundation.in/wp-content/
uploads/2020/04/Fileattached-1492420083-
Saving_lives_infograph.pdf
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Infographics and Factsheets
Download here:
https://populationfoundation.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Factsheet_Youth-Survey_Covid.pdf
Social media posts
Active presence on different social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and YouTube.
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Audio-visual materials
We use a range of audio-visual materials
to reach out to our audience. The videos
have been shown at meetings and events,
have been shared through e-mails and
social media and are available on the
organisation’s website.
View it here:
https://populationfoundation.in/birth-spacing/
View it here:
https://populationfoundation.in/
peoplebeforenumbers-population-growth-a-
cause-for-concern/
View it here:
https://populationfoundation.in/the-cost-of-
inaction-in-family-planning/
View it here:
https://populationfoundation.in/the-reel-to-real-
stories-of-main-kuch-bhi-kar-sakti-hoon/
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Resource 14:
Digital media including social media40
What is digital strategic engagement/advocacy?
Digital strategic engagement is the use
of technology for informing, attaining
visibility, and mobilising support from
communities, decision-makers and
thought leaders towards a cause in
order to bring about positive change.
Social media comprises interactive digital
tools that facilitate sharing of messages
with a large number of people. It helps
in connecting groups or individuals
interested in particular subjects. Social
media is increasingly becoming an
integral component of movements and
campaigns.
Why use digital strategic engagement?
• Can be accessed by anyone having a
smartphone/ internet
• Has the potential to reach many
people
• Is economical and prompt
• Engage with people who may not be
able to participate in-person
• Can be used to reach people
interested in the particular areas you
are working in
Social networking
It helps people and organisations connect
online to share information and ideas. For
example, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Types
of social
media
Media sharing networks
They offer visual as well as audio-visual
modes of interactions where users can
engage/interact with others through tags,
likes, comments, or direct messages. For
example, Snapchats, Instagram, YouTube.
Blogging and publishing networks
They provide platforms to write about a
specific cause or issue or post memes,
events and initiate discourses. For
example, WordPress, Tumblr, Reddit.
40 https://www.asiapacificalliance.org/application/files/3216/1234/6061/Advocacy_Toolkit_Digital.pdf
https://www.voicesofyouth.org/act/how-do-digital-advocacy
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How to plan and execute digital strategic engagement?
Set your goals and objectives
Digital strategic engagement requires proper planning to determine what needs to be
done and how we do it. Use the SMART goal-setting approach illustrated in Chapter-3.
Be practical while setting goals so that you do not find yourself overstretching to
achieve any of them.
Bear in mind that the use of social media in isolation is unlikely to be successful, use it
to complement and augment the organisation’s existing strategic engagement efforts
and to contribute to shifting or reaffirming policy priorities.
Identifying the target audience
Audience refers to people or institutions you intend to educate and mobilise to achieve
the desired goal. Define your audience(s) as clearly as possible, some questions that will
help you narrow down your target audience:
• Profession — are they policy-makers, bureaucrats, academicians, think-tanks?
• Awareness — are they well-informed about the issue?
• Interests — what do they care about?
• Attitude — how do they feel about your issue/cause?
• Change — how can they bring about the change you are trying to achieve?
• Preferences — what media do they consume? what social media platform do they
use?
• Influencers — who do they listen to?
When you plan, you may categorise the engagement activities into 4 segments:
• Targeted engagement - Organic
• Targeted engagement - Promoted (Paid)
• Mass engagement - Organic
• Mass engagement - Promoted
Targeted engagement activities are aimed directly at policymakers, and mass
engagement activities are aimed at generating tangible demand from the masses,
which can then be directed toward the policymakers.
Targeted engagement - Organic
Medium: Twitter or LinkedIn
• Create a list of all stakeholders, especially mid to senior-level bureaucrats and
policy-makers.
• Create tweets or posts about core issues and keep tagging them in these posts.
• Ask polite questions on posts and tag them, get them to engage with you.
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Targeted engagement - Promoted
Medium: LinkedIn
• Create engaging content that captures the message you wish to promote
• Target relevant officials / departments
• Promote the content to these officials
• Based on the number or stats of those who engaged with the post, you can then
reach out to them through LinkedIn messages or via email
Mass engagement - Organic
• Partner with firms, other people and influencers
• Organise a tweetathon (on twitter), while requesting partners to tag relevant
stakeholders in every tweet and use a common hashtag that contains the issue
• Request partners to also post on all the platforms they are on while using the
hashtag and tagging the stakeholders on those platforms too
• Create a change.org petition. Circulate among people and get their endorsement
• Share the petition with stakeholders via email and by tagging them on social posts
Mass engagement - Promoted
• Create engaging content that contains the core message
• Create a call to action - either asking the audience to create a post and tag
stakeholders, or sending an email to stakeholders, or asking them to call their local
representatives
• Promote the content to a set audience on Facebook / Instagram
Messages - what do you want them to know and do?
Drafting your message
Your messages should persuade and
convince your audience to think or take
an action, in order to create a positive
change.
Three key questions to guide the
development of your messages:
• What do we want people to know?
• What do we want people to feel?
• What do we want people to do?
Narrowing down your target audience at
the outset is essential, so you can tailor
your messages accordingly. Resource 11
of this chapter will guide your message
development process.
Research well and always verify the
source of the information before
disseminating the message.
Make sure the messages are concise,
specific, simple and free from jargon.
Bear in mind, people have short attention
spans.
Avoid making grammatical and spelling
errors, which can be off-putting and can
also reduce your credibility.
Though context-specific, it is usually
helpful to include a call to action.
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Creating content
The next step involves creating attractive
content for social media. Digital platforms
are inundated with information and
often you will find a lot of competition.
It is necessary to stand out while being
mindful of your strengths and limitations.
The kind of content will be determined by
the type of social media platforms being
used. Understanding what content works
better on which channels, is imperative.
Make sure that you create eye-catching
and compelling content that conveys
your messages. Some of the popular
mediums are: videos, reels, infographics,
memes, blogs, interviews, human interest
stories, GIFs, first-person narratives, email
communication (newsletters, appeals,
etc.)
Digital Tactics - how will you get there?
Your tactics are the content and channels
through which you will communicate
your messages to your audience. Use
appropriate digital channels that will
reach your specific target audience. For
example, Instagram is popular among
young people, while thought leaders
usually prefer Twitter or LinkedIn.
Deciding when will you do what
Planning the timeline is an important
element of digital advocacy—when to use
which digital channel and post what type
of content.
You may consider international and
national days that are of significance to
your cause, such as World Health Day,
World Population Day, and so on. Post
Make sure you engage actively with your
audience such as replying promptly
to comments and tactfully responding
to negative comments without being
combative.
Use appropriate hashtags and connect
the post to all other relevant posts to link
into conversations.
during a time when there is a heightened
buzz around the issue you are promoting.
In addition, align your engagement
around locally or nationally significant
events/releases of reports or studies/
debates. Since it is not always possible to
foresee events, make sure you diligently
follow the news so that you can decide
what to post at the opportune time.
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Resource 15:
What should strategic engagement kit include?
A strategic engagement kit is a
compilation of informational documents
that you can give to decision makers or
thought leaders that you meet.
Start with a generic kit that will include
materials that you can use across
audiences. But depending upon who
you are meeting, tailor the kit to include
materials that speak to the decision
maker or thought leader.
For national and local leaders:
• Include a comparison of how their
constituency is faring vis a vis other
similar constituencies
For media:
• Include quotes from local and global
leaders
• Include photos and stories from the
field
These should be updated periodically to
ensure they are not dated.
• Include data from their constituency
Figure 5: Elements of a strategic engagement kit
Key Country
Commitments
Evidence - what’s
the status, how
family planning can
save lives, etc.
Details of what
you/your organisation
is doing/wants to do
Strategic
Engagement
Kit
Call to action - what you
want the decision
maker or thought
leader to do
Bytes/quotes from
key experts or
from the field
Contact details-who
should they reach out
to for more information
or to start engagement
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Assessing organisation’s capacity to do strategic engagement
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7.Leveraging
Opportunities
A strong strategic engagement plan leverages new opportunities or events to
amplify strategic engagement work.
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At times, changes or events in the
external environment present
opportunities to highlight the cause
you are working on and increase the
participation of thought leaders in
strategic engagement. You should
be prepared to leverage these
opportunities by staying up to speed
on changing dynamics in the family
planning environment. Move quickly
to map the audience, prepare strategic
communication messages and allocate
resources.
The following questions can help you
think about leveraging opportunities:
• What are the new opportunities or
events?
• How can we use the opportunities to
increase strategic engagement on our
issue?
• What platforms – such as existing
committees or networks – do we use
to reach thought leaders?
• Which mix of tactics and platforms do
we use and how?
At the core of leveraging opportunities
is your ability to be flexible with your
strategic engagement plan. At times, you
may find that your interventions are not
having the impact you intend, in which
case it is time to review and revise your
original strategic engagement plan. You
can stay on top of any opportunities and
setbacks by actively monitoring your
implementation plan.
Chapter 8 (page 114) will
introduce you to monitoring
and evaluation.
Girls can change the story
Leveraging opportunities
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CASE 11
LEVERAGING MEDIA TO CHANGE DISCOURSE41,42
The ban on condom advertisements during primetime hours issued by the Ministry
of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) in December 2017 presented Population
Foundation of India an opportunity to advocate for the importance of sexual and
reproductive choice. Our messages stated that the ban was counter-intuitive to
the MoHFW’s family planning efforts, under which condoms are the only spacing
contraceptives for men and asked the I&B Ministry to reconsider the decision. We
also suggested that the I&B Ministry allow the airing of these advertisements by
grading the content as permissible during prime time.
The strategic engagement used a multiple media approach, which included a press
release, electronic media, public statements and opinion editorials and articles. In
line with our recommendation, the I&B Ministry reversed its order within two weeks
and decided to grade advertisements according to their content and to slot their
telecast accordingly.
A community meeting in progress
41 (Internal document) StratComm Consulting. Leading the way: Population Foundation of India’s advocacy journey from 2014-2019. Population
Foundation of India. June 2019
42 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/india-bans-condom-adverts-during-primetime-tv#:~:text=India%20has%20banned%20
television%20adverts,and%20promotes%20%E2%80%9Cunhealthy%20practices%E2%80%9D.&text=Regulations%20also%20prohibit%20
%E2%80%9Cindecent%2C%20vulgar,%E2%80%9D%20in%20advertisements%2C%20it%20said
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CASE 12
USING THE COVID PANDEMIC TO CALL FOR FOCUS ON ADOLESCENT
HEALTH43,44
The COVID-19 pandemic that swept through India in 2020 highlighted the need for
‘healthier constituencies’ and for health system strengthening. The Government of
Rajasthan declared a plan to establish a model Community Health Centre (CHC) in
each constituency to ensure that medical facilities are available during the COVID-19
pandemic, even in rural areas.
Population Foundation of India has been working on adolescent health in Rajasthan
since 2018. We took advantage of this opportunity to promote the linkages in
narrative between Healthy adolescents and Healthy constituency. Continuous
engagement with the ministry led to the Health Minister approving the inclusion
of the Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics in the model CHCs in 200 constituencies.
After receiving this approval, Population Foundation’s state team worked with
the Rajasthan Department of Health and Family Welfare officials to develop the
guidelines and plan for implementation.
43 (Internal document) Rajasthan commit to Expanding quality of and access to, adolescent reproductive health services Expansion of
Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics in the state
44 https://www.dtnext.in/national/2020/08/24/one-model-community-health-center-to-be-set-up-in-every-assembly-constituency-raj-cm
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Dovetailing efforts
Incorporate existing platforms and special
days into your strategic engagement
plan, linking them with your tactics
and messages for amplified impact.
Opportunities can include:
• Participating in local, national and
international conferences, especially
on family planning,
• Leveraging platforms like
Parliamentary Standing Committees,
• Collaborating with networks, coalitions
and CSOs for a collective effort,
• Promoting international days such
as World Contraception Day or
International Day of the Woman.
Opportunities to participate in
conferences or study tours can be
particularly enriching as decision makers
and thought leaders can connect with
counterparts, exchange knowledge
and strengthen engagements. These
exposures can make them more
sensitised and interested in the issue
you are advocating for. They can bring
the learning from these exposures and
further promote your narratives through
media, peers and other decision makers.
INTERNATIONAL DAYS OF
SIGNIFICANCE
• March 8 – International Women’s
Day
• April 7 – World Health Day
• May 15 – International Day of
Families
• May 28 - International Day of Action
for Women’s Health
• June 1 – Global Day of Parents
• July 11 – World Population Day
• August 12 – International Youth Day
• August 26 - Women’s Equality Day
• September 26—World
Contraception Day
• October 2 – International Day of
Non-Violence
• October 11 – International Day of
The Girl Child
• October 15 – International Day of
Rural Women
• November 17 World Vasectomy Day
• November 25 – International Day for
the Elimination of Violence against
Women
• December 10 – Human Rights Day
• December 12 – International
Universal Health Coverage Day
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Crisis as opportunity
At each stage of strategic engagement, events may occur that lead to new opportunities
While it may seem counterintuitive, a
crisis can present new opportunities to
push forward the strategic engagement
goal.
While a crisis is generally unforeseen,
a sudden event, it may also result from
foreseen challenges that can be assessed
and mitigated.
Use Tool 15 (page 111) to map out the
different scenarios that can qualify as a
potential crisis.
Use Tool 16 (page 112) to assess the
likelihood of a crisis and develop your
contingency plan.
Refer to Resource 16 (page 113) for some
pointers on what to do in a crisis.
Community engagement in Bihar
Types of crisis
Sudden crisis like comments by
a politician or religious leader or
opposition to an advertisement of
family planning or family planning
methods or a negative media
report.
Brewing crisis like international
developments, policy changes or
opposition by religious groups.
Leveraging opportunities
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CASE 13
ROBBED OF CHOICE AND DIGNITY45
In November of 2014, news broke that 16 women had died and several others were
in critical condition following tubectomy at a sterilisation camp in Bilaspur District of
Chhattisgarh.
The crisis provided an opportunity to advocate for improved quality of family
planning services. Population Foundation of India acted quickly and led a fact-
finding team to assess the situation that led to the deaths and to make concrete
recommendations to prevent further tragic deaths of women seeking family planning
services. The team met with district and state officials, visited health facilities and
interacted with families of the deceased and women who had recovered.
Based on the visit, Population Foundation released a report detailing their findings
and recommendations. One of the key findings was the use of monetary incentives
to coerce women into taking up sterilisation services. This consumed a major portion
of funds that could otherwise be allocated to improve infrastructure and quality of
care at these camps. The report showed the skewed emphasis on sterilisation and
incentives. It urged policymakers to reconsider the system of incentives and focus
on improving the quality of care. In addition to concrete recommendations to the
state, the report pressed for the elimination of incentives to promote family planning
services.
The report was part of the evidence submitted to the Supreme Court which directed
states to stop sterilisation camps and replace them with fixed day services. The
strategic engagement also led to improved infection prevention programmes and
quality of care protocols for family planning programmes.
45 Population Foundation of India. Robbed of Choice and Dignity: Indian Women Dead after Mass Sterilisation – Situational Assessment of
Sterilisation Camps in Bilaspur District, Chhattisgarh. 2014
110
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Tool 15:
Severity-impact matrix
The severity-impact matrix will help you assess the seriousness of a crisis by
mapping crisis scenarios across four quadrants of impact and severity.
Example: Investigative reporting by
media documenting the experience
of a small group of women on the
use of hormonal contraceptives
Controllable damage –
easy recovery
Example: Public interest litigation/
legal proceedings against
organisations promoting modern
hormonal contraceptives
Will have an impact on the
family planning
programme
May also impact the
organisation’s reputation
Controllable before it gets
blown into crisis
Recovery to be planned to
avoid long term impact
Low
SEVERITY
Example: Community leaders oppose
modern hormonal contraceptives
saying they will encourage
promiscuity amongst women
High
Example: Investigative/fact-finding
mission reports by organisation
which show the government in
poor light
Leveraging opportunities
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Tool 16:
Risk assessment and contingency planning
During a crisis, the following questions will help you understand the situation
better and decide which situations warrant a response46,47:
Questions to ask during a crisis
What happened?
Does this incident/situation have the
potential to turn into a crisis?
What can trigger this situation further?
What could be the impact? What are the
short-term and long-term implications?
(Also use Tool 15 page 111)
Who should know about this situation
within your organisation/alliance?
What other information can you/your
organisation gather about this situation?
From whom?
What would happen if you/your
organisation do not take any action?
What should your plan be?
What can be the potential benefits of the
proposed action?
What will be the level of risk after you
implement your plan?
46 (Internal document) Footprint Global. Crisis Manual. Population Foundation of India. 2017
47 ARC resource pack: Study material. Foundation Module 5: Advocacy. 2009 https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/arc-foundation-
module-5-advocacy
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Resource 16:
Dos and Don’ts in a crisis
Form a crisis management committee within your organisation/alliance. This should
include your programme team, your communication team and senior leadership. Ensure
there is clear guidance on the flow of information during a crisis.
Dos
Don’ts
Ensure that everyone – leadership, team
and alliance – knows the position of the
organisation on the specific issue/crisis
point
Say different things
Escalate as required, bringing the crisis to
the attention at people at higher levels in
the organisation
Share facts only
Panic
Encourage rumours
Develop key messages before speaking
to anyone
Speak to the media only if required and
only by authorised spokespersons
Speak without talking points
Speak to media all at once and without
authority to speak
Leveraging opportunities
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8.Monitoring and
Evaluation
Good monitoring and evaluation are key to knowing if your intervention is on
track, working effectively and yielding results.
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Your work on monitoring and evaluation
(M&E) started when you chose a SMART
objective. Now, you need to think about
how to measure whether you have
achieved that objective.
M&E provides a framework to measure
change and track progress towards
your strategic engagement goals and
objectives. It ensures that your activities
are working effectively and yielding
results. Think about these questions:
• Are the tactics working? Is change
taking place?
• What activities are most effective?
• What do you need to change, what
should continue and what should
stop?
While monitoring and evaluation are two
different processes, they go hand in hand
and provide valuable insights into revising
strategies and improving implementation.
Monitoring measures progress towards
specific results concerning a strategy’s
implementation plan. Monitoring tries to
answer the following questions:
• Is the engagement moving according
to the need?
• Is the engagement timely and does it
use resources appropriately?
• Will the engagement achieve expected
results?
Evaluation attempts to determine as
systematically and objectively as possible,
a strategy’s worth or significance.
Evaluation tries to answer:
• Success or failure of the engagement
• Change brought by the engagement
A beneficiary walking out of a PHC
Monitoring and evaluation
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M&E for strategic engagement
Strategic engagement is challenging to evaluate and measure as policy change is a result
of a combination of tactics undertaken by different actors
Monitoring and evaluation of strategic
engagement is important for the same
reasons as M&E of programmes:
performance management, learning and
accountability48,49.
• It helps you understand what
strategies or tactics are working
well and points you to mid-course
correction.
• It helps donors understand the
complexity of policy change and
manage expectations.
• It enables you to react and ‘course
correct’ your strategy swiftly as
situations/opportunities change.
Standard social science methods that
identify an independent variable and
a specific set of dependent variables
likely to affect change are not always
well-suited for measurement of strategic
engagement work. The difference lies in
the kind of indicators and measures of
progress you track and the evaluation
approaches you use50,51,52.
Keeping this in mind, in most cases what
is measured in strategic engagement
is the “change” that has been brought
about. “Indicators” are developed to
measure this change at different levels.
Challenges
• Strategic engagement takes time.
The policy changes that strategic
engagement wishes to bring about
cannot happen overnight – it might be
slow and incremental.
• It is not easy to determine if what you
did using a particular tactic brought
about the result. This is because
in strategic engagement you use
multiple tactics to reach your decision
maker.
• Similarly, many organisations might
be working on the same issue. If you
have formed an alliance, the result
can be attributed to the alliance but
assessing the exact contribution of
your organisation may be difficult.
48 Organizational Research Services. A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy. Annie E, Casey Foundation, Baltimore, Maryland. 2007 https://
www.aecf.org/resources/a-guide-to-measuring-advocacy-and-policy/
49 UNICEF. Monitoring and evaluating advocacy. Companion to the Advocacy Toolkit.
50 Alliance for Justice. Build your advocacy grantmaking: Advocacy Evaluation Tool, Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool. 2005
51 The Advocacy Sourcebook. WaterAid. 2007 https://www.advocacyaccelerator.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Advocacy-sourcebook.WaterAid.pdf
52 UNICEF. Advocacy Toolkit: A guide to influencing decisions that improve children’s lives. October 2010.
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Developing and implementing the M&E plan
Monitor every step of the way and do not be afraid to change course to achieve your
goals and objectives. You may need to change the decision maker you are targeting or
change the tactic that you are using to reach out to them
Designing an M&E framework for
strategic engagement involves five
phases53,54:
Phase 1: Designing the logic models
A logic model is a snapshot of how your
intervention is supposed to work. It
provides an overview that addresses the
following questions:
• What is the desired impact?
• How will change take place?
• What assumptions must be true for
change to occur?
• How will you measure and track
progress?
The three commonly used logic models
are the theory of change, the result
framework and the logical framework.
Refer to Resource 17 (page 121) for a
list of terms used in M&E, including the
different terminology used by different
donors for the level of results.
Refer to Resource 18 (page 123) for the
different logic models.
Phase 2: Planning monitoring and
evaluating activities
You will then need to think about
collecting, analysing and interpreting
data. The M&E plan should provide you
indicators to mark progress, methods of
data collection and an analysis plan. If
possible, it should also indicate how you
use the analysed data for strengthening
strategic engagement.
Refer to Resource 19 (page 126) for
sample indicators for each tactic we
spoke about earlier.
Refer to Resource 20 (page 128) for a
sample M&E framework.
Use Tool 17 (page 134) to develop
indicators for your strategic engagement
plan.
53 Save the Children. Advocacy and Campaigning Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
54 Culligan, Mike, Sherriff, Leslie, et al. A guide to the Meal DPro: Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning for Development
Professionals. Version 1.0. Humentum, Catholic Relief Services, Humanitarian Leadership Academy. April 2019
Monitoring and evaluation
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Phase 3: Collecting M&E data
After making your plan, decide on tools
to collect data. Formal and informal
data collection mechanisms can be
used. Example, records and minutes
of meetings that you organise with
policymakers can be used as a data
source. You could review policymakers’
speeches and announcements, as well
as parliamentary discussions. As far as
possible, you should ensure that you
are collecting multiple sources and
types of data, i.e. both documentary
and anecdotal evidence from different
sources.
Use Tool 18 (page 135) for a checklist
that will help you see if your strategic
engagement is going as per plan.
Phase 4: Analysing M&E data
Data analysis is conducted during and
after implementation according to the
analysis plan established during the
M&E planning phase. You need to think
about what the information tells you
and whether you should modify your
strategies and activities.
Use Tool 19 (page 136) to record and
capture your successes and failures.
Phase 5: Using M&E data
Data can be used internally to inform
management decisions and externally
to inform communications and promote
accountability. Review and reflection
should occur through your strategic
engagement initiative by sharing findings
with your colleagues and reflecting on
your progress, successes and learnings.
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CASE 14
STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT TO INTRODUCE A CSE CURRICULUM IN THE
STATE55
Under the Rajasthan adolescent health programme, Population Foundation of India
worked closely with the office of the Additional Chief Secretary through a series of
strategic engagements. We presented the current state of the RKSK in Rajasthan and
the rationale for increased attention to the only adolescent health program in the
state. The strategic engagement aimed to introduce a community-based curriculum
for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) for the state that was endorsed by the
Rajasthan Department of Health.
The process of obtaining Department endorsement of the contextualised CSE
curriculum included:
• The development of the strategic engagement plan through a rigorous process of
a situation analysis and opinion analysis. This led to the identification of
the decision makers and thought leaders. A detailed plan was developed
with key messages and tactics for each audience.
• This was then followed by strategic relationship building and continued
liaison with the decision makers and thought leaders.
• We also initiated the development of a CSE curriculum and presented it to
the decision makers and thought leaders. Links were made with how CSE can
improve on-going interventions in the adolescent health space and therefore
improve public health.
• Efforts were monitored at each level and changes made in the tactics to
ensure that we were responsive to the changing scenario at the field level.
The efforts bore fruit when in July 2019 the Department endorsed the CSE
curriculum. The Department also provided an acknowledgement on the curriculum
itself which was shared with adolescents in the project’s target areas.
55 (Internal document) Comprehensive health education curriculum endorsement by Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of
Rajasthan
Monitoring and evaluation
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CASE 15
EMPOWERING THE YOUTH TO ENSURE THE PROVISION OF ADOLESCENT
HEALTH SERVICES
The Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Nawada’s Kawakole block caters to a population
of 1.67 lakh people. In 2014, the Bihar State Government established a Yuva clinic
at the PHC under the Central government’s RKSK in order to strengthen adolescent
health services. However, it failed to provide a youth counsellor at the facility or to
generate awareness regarding the services provided by the facility. As a result, the
clinic became non-operational over time.
As part of a programmatic intervention in 2016, led by Population Foundation
of India and its development partners in the block, ten youth leaders visited the
dysfunctional health facility at Kawakole block to assess the services provided
to young people in the community. They found that there was no counselling of
adolescents at the PHC and that service providers such as doctors and auxiliary
nurse midwives lacked training and sensitivity towards adolescent health issues.
Observing the wide gap between the demand and availability of adolescent health
services at the primary healthcare level, the youth leaders flagged the issue at
Jan Samvad meetings organised by the Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition
Committee (VHSNC) and at other block level interactions.
When the district administration decided to restore services at the Yuva clinic,
Population Foundation of India supported the administration and collaborated
with the Bihar State Health Society to restore the facility in line with the guidelines
provided by the RKSK. This involved developing prototypes of information and
education materials to be used at the clinic, as well as supporting the cadre of youth
leaders in creating awareness about the clinic and referring cases to the clinic.
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Resource 17:
Terms for M&E
Monitoring
A systematic and continuous assessment
of progress over time, which checks that
things are ‘going to plan’ and enables
adjustments to be made in a methodical
way56.
Impact
A lasting or significant changes – positive
or negative, intended or not – in people’s
lives, brought about by a given action
or series of actions58. For example, total
fertility rate or the average number of
children per woman in her lifetime.
Output
A short-term result that is the logical
consequence of completed activities and
that contributes to planned outcomes.
For example, the number of advocacy
meetings held.
Evaluation
A periodic assessment of the relevance,
performance, efficiency and impact of a
strategic engagement with respect to its
stated objectives57.
Outcome
This is a medium-term developmental
result that is the logical consequence of
achieving a combination of outputs within
the duration of the project. For example,
the passing of a family planning-related
policy.
Indicator
Indicators are qualitative and quantitative
measures of results at output, outcome
and impact levels. These are used
to monitor progress towards the
achievement of expected results or
performance against results is measured
through the use of indicators.
56 Bakewell, O., Adams, J. and Pratt, B. Sharpening the Development Process. A Practical Guide to Monitoring and Evaluation. Intrac Praxis Guide
No. 1. 2003
57 The Advocacy Sourcebook. WaterAid. 2007 https://www.advocacyaccelerator.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Advocacy-sourcebook.WaterAid.pdf
58 Roche, Chris. Impact Assessment for Development Agencies: Learning to Value Change. Oxfam. 1999
Monitoring and evaluation
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Different terminology uses by different donors for level of results:
Agency
The Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation
EU
USAID
3rd level results
(Impact/Goal)
Primary Outcome
Overall Objectives
Final Goal
2nd level results
(Outcome)
Intermediate
Outcome
Project Purpose
Strategic Goal
CARE
UN Agencies
World Bank
Final Goal
Impact
Goal
Intermediate Goals
Effect
Project purpose
1st level results
(Output)
Output
Expected Results
Intermediate
Results
Outputs
Outputs
Outputs
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Resource 18:
Logic models59,60
Theory of change (ToC)
A theory of change provides the big picture of the intended change. It defines the long-
term goal of an intervention and the broad strategic areas of intervention. It also maps
the building blocks or preconditions that need to be in place for the long-term change to
occur. The ToC also identifies the assumptions that need to hold for the intervention to
succeed and the evidence that is available to support them.
Source 61
59 Save the Children. Advocacy and Campaigning Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
60 Culligan, Mike, Sherriff, Leslie, et al. A guide to the Meal DPro: Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning for Development
Professionals. Version 1.0. Humentum, Catholic Relief Services, Humanitarian Leadership Academy. April 2019
61 Guadalupe de la Mata. A tool to develop your Theory of Change. Innovation for Social Change. 8 February 2018. https://
innovationforsocialchange.org/en/a-tool-to-develop-your-theory-of-change/
Monitoring and evaluation
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Results framework (RF)
A logic model organises the results of intervention into a series of if-then relationships.
The statements in the RF describe the intervention’s hierarchy of objectives and the
causal (or vertical) logic of the project.
W H AT I S A RE S U LT S FR A M EW ORK?
9
Table 1. Basic Outline of a Results Framework
Country
development
goals
Issues/
obstacles/
critical
assumptions
Outcomes
expected
Outputs/
milestones
Use of
monitoring
country goal
Indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Target: xxxx (2010)
Additional/alternative
indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Target: xxxx (2010)
[continue with
additional indicators
or move to next goal]
[critical issues
and obstacles to
achieving country
development goals]
Statement of second
country goal
Indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Target: xxxx (2010)
Additional/alternative
indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Target: xxxx (2010)
[continue with
additional indicators
or move to next goal]
outcome
Indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Midline: xxxx (2007)
Target: xxxx (2010)
Additional/alternative
indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Midline: xxxx (2007)
Target: xxxx (2010)
[continue with
additional indicators
or move to next
outcome]
Statement of second
outcome
Indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Midline: xxxx (2007)
Target: xxxx (2010)
Additional/alternative
indicator
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Midline: xxxx (2007)
Target: xxxx (2010)
[continue with
additional indicators
or move to next
outcome]
output/milestone to
be realized within the
time of the results
framework
Indicator (if quantitative
milestone)
Baseline: xxxx (2005)
Target: xxxx (2006)
xxxx (2007)
xxxx (2008)
xxxx (2009)
xxxx (2010)
Additional/alternative
indicator (if quantitative)
[continue with
additional indicators or
move to next milestone]
[short descriptive
text highlighting
how the
information will
be used]
Statement of second
outputs/ milestone
[continue as above]
Source 62
It highlights the key linkages in the theory of change that underpin
the intervention. A simple but clear results framework engages 62 Independent Evaluation Group. Designing a Results Framework for Achieving Results: A How-to Guide. World Bank. 2012 Designing a Results
constituents in thinking through the theory of change underpinning Framework for Achieving Results: A How-to Guide https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/331541563854787772/pdf/Designing-a-Results-
Framework-for-Achieving-Results-A-How-to-Guide.pdf
the intervention. Discussion of a results framework often requires
124 pProopgurlaatmionsFtoaundaantdionoothf Ienrdicaonstituents to identify the development
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Logical framework (Logframe)
A logic model describes the key features of the intervention (objectives, indicators,
measurement methods and assumptions) and highlights the logical linkages between
them. By including indicators and measurement methods, the Logframe provides the
basis for later developing the M&E plan.
Logframe example for UNICEF Mexico
Results
Indicators
Baseline
Targets
*** *****STRATEGIC RESULTS
Means of
verification
Assumptions
What results
are needed for
success?
What indicators
will show success
in achieving the
outcome?
Interim outcome:
Improved
perceptions about
UNICEF Mexico
among government
personnel
% of government
officials who
know more about
UNICEF Mexico
and cite favourable
perceptions of it
Interim outcome:
Improved
government
openness to
UNICEF advocacy
asks
# government-
initiated contacts
with UNICEF
Mexico
Where is the
indicator now?
How far do you How will you
want to move the get the indicator
indicator?
data?
To be obtained
with baseline
assessment of
government official
perceptions
85% of government
officials queried
report increased
knowledge and
perceptions after
two years
Bellwether
methodology(pre
and post) focused
on government
actors
No government-
initiated contacts
in the past year
!!
10 requests (for
information,
technical
assistance, etc.)
over the next two
years
UNICEF tracking
of government
requests
What could skew
the results?
Turnover of
government sta
Turnover of
government sta
Goal: Improved
policy adoption;
UNICEF advocacy
asks more
successful
% of advocacy asks
that are adopted by
the Government
To be obtained
with baseline
assessment of
advocacy success
over the past year
50% increase
in number of
advocacy asks
adopted over next
two years
Policy tracking
May take longer
than anticipated
to build a better
relationship that
translates into
policy
COURSE OF ACTION
What must be done
to achieve the
interim outcomes?
What indicator
(outputs) will
indicate success
on the activity?
Activity:
Partnering with
the Government
directly
# of projects on
which partnerships
were formed
Where is the
output now?
No partnerships
during the past
year
How far do you
want to move the
output?
How will you get
the output data?
What could skew
the results?
Three project
partnerships over
next two years
UNICEF tracking
Availability of
appropriate
opportunities to
partner
Activity: Building
government
technical capacity
# of times technical
assistance o ered/
accepted
To be obtained
with baseline
assessment over
the past year
Activity: Building
interpersonal
relationships
# of one-on-one
meetings with
government
personnel
To be obtained
with baseline
assessment over
the past year
15 accepted
o erings of
technical
assistance over the
next two years
UNICEF tracking
30 meetings with
new contacts over
the next two years
UNICEF tracking
of meetings
Availability
of technical
assistance
requests or needs
Turnover of
government sta
Source 63
63 UNICEF. Monitoring and evaluating advocacy. Companion to the Advocacy Toolkit.
Monitoring and evaluation
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Resource 19:
Sample indicators
Strategic Engagement indicators are often
qualitative, i.e. people’s judgments or
perceptions about a subject, or measure
of commitments made or changes in
the attitudes and behaviours of decision
makers. Qualitative indicators are
harder to measure than quantitative
indicators and are context-specific.
Quantitative indicators count numbers
or calculate percentages. In general,
using a combination of quantitative and
qualitative indicators will enable you to
assess your progress more effectively64.
Tactic
(From Resource 6)
Alliance building
Champions and
spokespersons
Examples of output
indicators
Examples of
Examples of
incremental
impact indicators
outcome indicators
• Number of
coalition
members
• Number of
coalition
meetings held
and attendance
• Collaborative
action taken by
the alliance
• Positive change
in people’s lives
because of the
policy change
• Decreased
unmet need for
family planning
• Fewer
• Number of
• New champions
unwanted
champions or
or celebrities
pregnancies
celebrities
recruited
• Easier access to
• Types of
• Champion
programmes or
constituencies
actions, e.g.,
services
represented
among celebrities
speaking out or • Increased
signing on, to
effectiveness
support the issue
of civil society
or position
work
64 UNICEF. Advocacy Toolkit: A guide to influencing decisions that improve children’s lives. October 2010.
126
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Tactic
(From Resource 6)
Examples of output
indicators
Examples of
Examples of
incremental
impact indicators
outcome indicators
Media
engagement
• Number of
journalists
reached out to
• Number and
type of media
partnerships
developed
• Number
• Civil society
of stories
groups active
successfully
in influencing
placed in the
decision makers
media
in ways that will
• Number of
articles reflecting
benefit poor
people
the preferred
framing of issues
Engagement with • Number of
• Number of
national and local
meetings held
leaders who
leaders (elected
representatives)
• Number of
national and local
publicly support
the effort
leaders reached • Number of
• Type of leaders
reached
• Number of
briefings or
citations of
products/data
during policy
deliberations
presentations
held
• Number of policy
briefs developed
Social media
• A new website
or web pages
developed
• Social media
pages created
• Number and
frequency of
messages sent
• Engagement
rates on social
media
For information on core indicators used by FP2030 to monitor progress:
https://familyplanning2020.org/what-we-measure#fp2030-measurement-framework
Monitoring and evaluation
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Resource 20: Sample M&E framework
Level of
result
Result statement Performance
indicators
Indicator
definitions
Baseline
Outcome
Outcome
Output
State level
Declaration
NA
declaration on
endorsed by key
Adolescent Sexual influential leaders
and Reproductive that prioritises
Health (ARSH)
adolescent
endorsed
reproductive and
by leaders,
sexual health.
stakeholders,
opinion shapers
and eminent
personalities.
Health department
commits to and
takes action on at
least 2 gaps in RKSK
implementation as
identified during
inception stage.
Required action
taken by health
department to
address at least two
identified gaps to
strengthen RKSK.
The action could be NA
in form of - Scale up
of RKSK, expansion/
scale up of PE
model, provision/
improvement/
strengthening of
service delivery
in ARSH clinics,
increasing budget
allocation/utilization
under RKSK,
operationalizing
AHDs.
Increased
Number of key
Key stakeholders NA
championing by
stakeholders who include media
key stakeholders to support ARSH
personnel,
promote adolescent through op-eds and government
sexual and
statements.
officials, ARSH
reproductive health
subject experts,
and prevention of
development
child marriage in
partners, etc.
Rajasthan.
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Targets
Data
source
Endorsed state Official
level declaration document
Data
collection
(Primary/
Secondary)
NA
Tool
required
NA
Frequency
of
data
collection
Comment
Once
Concrete action GO, PIP, FMR Secondary No
by government
on 2 gaps
identified
Annual
40
Media
Primary
Yes
Monthly
monitoring;
Meeting
minutes
Monitoring and evaluation
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Level of
result
Result statement Performance
indicators
Indicator
definitions
Baseline
Output
Output
Process
Increased
discourse on
adolescent sexual
and reproductive
health issues and
child marriage
through strategic
engagement with
media.
Multi-stakeholder
engagement
to advance
adolescent sexual
and reproductive
health agenda in
Rajasthan.
Knowledge
generation and
dissemination.
Number of articles
on adolescent
issues and child
marriage in media.
Issues relating
-
to education,
nutrition, mental
health, substance
abuse, addiction,
empowerment, SRH
etc.
Kind of stakeholders Stakeholders
-
engaged to advance - government
adolescent sexual departments
and reproductive (Health & FW,
health agenda in Social Justice &
Rajasthan.
Empowerment,
WCD, Youth Affairs
& Sports), NGOs,
media houses,
academia.
Joint
-
-
recommendations
for realizing ARSH
in Rajasthan
submitted
to relevant
department(s) by
stakeholders.
Number and kind of -
-
knowledge products
generated.
Number of
-
-
dissemination
events.
130
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Targets
100
Data
source
Media
monitoring
Data
collection
(Primary/
Secondary)
Primary
Tool
required
Yes
Frequency
of
data
collection
Comment
Monthly
-
Engagement with Directives NA
government and by Govt.;
non-government Meeting
stakeholders
reports
NA
Annual
-
Submission of “Call to
NA
“Call to Action” Action”
document
NA
Once
-
Opinion analysis; Knowledge NA
Desk review;
products
Situation
assessment;
Position paper;
Infographics
- 3; AV - 3
1 meeting with
departments,
media
houses
Event report NA
NA
Quarterly
-
NA
Once
Monitoring and evaluation
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Level of
result
Result statement Performance
indicators
Indicator
definitions
Baseline
Process
Strategic
Number of
-
-
Engagement with NGO staff and
influencers.
adolescents
trained to develop
systematic advocacy
plan.
Number of
-
-
meetings with key
stakeholders.
Number of learning -
-
visits of key
influencers.
Digital media
-
-
interface (Thematic
campaigns).
Number of multi- -
-
stakeholder
consultation.
Process
Strategic
Number of
-
-
engagement with sensitization/
media.
orientation
workshops
organized for
media.
Number of learning -
-
visits of media
persons.
132
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Targets
60 NGO
staff and
adolescents in 3
batches
Data
source
Data
collection
(Primary/
Secondary)
Event report NA
Tool
required
NA
Frequency
of
data
collection
Comment
Annual
-
8 small and
Event report NA
2 large meetings
2 learning
visits
Event report NA
14 interfaces
Event report NA
NA
Quarterly
-
NA
Annual
-
NA
Quarterly
-
1 consultation Event report NA
NA
Once
-
3 workshops
Event report NA
NA
Bi-annually -
3 learning
visits
Event report NA
NA
Annual
-
Monitoring and evaluation
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Tool 17:
Developing your indicators
Tactic
Output indicators Outcome indicators Impact indicators
Alliance building
Champions and
spokespersons
Media engagement
Engagement with
national and local
leaders
Social media
134
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Tool 18:
Checklist for effective implementation
Consider your anticipated outputs
and outcomes. Are you meeting
them? Use this tool to assess your
implementation. You will need to
do this periodically – quarterly, six-
monthly, etc.
Activities
(List all the
activities from
column 4 of Tool
11 page 72)
What
has been
completed?
What impact
has it had?
Was it done
within the
timeline?
What
opportunities
came in the
way?
What
setbacks
came in the
way?
What are
the key
learnings?
Monitoring and evaluation
135
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Tool 19:
Checklist for effective implementation
It is important to record and capture your successes and failures from strategic
engagement:
It shows the impact of investment.
It provides evidence of impactful strategies.
It provides a roadmap for similar efforts.
It motivates thought leaders and decision makers to keep the momentum.
It showcases learning.
It identifies strategies that have not worked.
It provides valuable insights for resource allocation.
You can use a combination of text and photographs/videos to share your
observations and lessons learned through strategic engagement and the change
achieved.
What did you set out to achieve?
What was your strategy?
What were the processes and outcomes? What lessons does this intervention
offer?
How do you plan to build on this?
KEY QUESTIONS
136
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Once you record your successes, list down activities you want to stop, continue or start (new):
STOP
• What did not work? Why did it not work? Why should it be stopped?
CONTINUE
• What worked well? How can it be continued in the future?
START
• What else is needed to strengthen the strategic engagement?
Community awareness through public announcements
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9.Next Steps
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead (Cultural Anthropologist)
|
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The tools and tips provided in this
handbook follow the 7-step strategic
engagement approach for family planning
that we use at Population Foundation of
India.
Now that you have reached the end of
the handbook, we hope that you have
been able to use these to develop or
strengthen your strategic engagement
plan.
REMEMBER
• Go back to the tools if you want to
refine any step.
• Use this as a ready resource to come
back to whenever you get stuck or
when you want to revisit a step.
• Share this handbook with others in
your network so that they can use it
to plan strategic engagement for an
issue close to their heart.
• Share your experiences with us – of
using this handbook, stories from the
field and successes and challenges
you faced.
Training of ASHAs
Next steps
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CASE 16
ADDITIONAL PHC MADE FUNCTIONAL THROUGH COMMUNITY DEMAND65
Funds were sanctioned for the construction of an Additional Primary Health Centre
(APHC) at Bithauli, Block Baheri in District Darbhanga and the facility was to be made
functional by early 2015. However, the services were never launched. In early 2017,
the VHSNC members were oriented on health rights and community monitoring of
outreach and facility-based health services. They brought up the issue of prolonged
delays in initiation of services at the APHC at VHSNC and Gram Panchayat (Village
Council) meetings. The Gram Panchayat submitted a petition at the Block Planning
and Monitoring Committee (BPMC) meeting in June 2017. The Block Medical Officer
of Block Baheri assured at the meeting that the services would be started soon.
However, there was no progress.
Population Foundation of India and its partners felt that the issue should be taken
forward at the district level. The Gram Panchayat members, with support from a
Member of the Legislative Assembly (Jale constituency), met the District Civil Surgeon
to discuss the issue.
The administration was forced to act owing to pressure from all ends. They
undertook minor repair works, obtained necessary equipment and deputed staff
to initiate services. The APHC was inaugurated by Mr. Ashwini Kumar Choubey,
Member of Parliament and Minister of State Health and Family Welfare. The APHC
became functional in November 2017.
Greatly encouraged by the outcome, similar initiatives were adopted by the Gram
Panchayat and VHSNC members to collectivise and demand accountability for
health services. From early 2018, a similar effort was undertaken to initiate services
at APHC Hariharpur, Block Singhwara in District Darbhanga. Staff nurses were
posted and services initiated in January 2019. Similarly, by virtue of taking up these
issues at BPMC meetings and Jan Samwads (Social Audits), three APHCs, Phuldih,
Madhuradpur and Kawadih at Kauwakol block in Nawada district, were made
functional.
65 https://nrhmcommunityaction.org/additional-phc-made-functional-through-community-demand-in-darbhanga/
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Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the contribution of Gram Nirman Mandal, Neha Gramin Mahila Vikas
Samiti, Kanchan Sewa Ashram, and Voluntary Health Association from Bihar; Prayas,
Aravali, Manjari Sansthan, Alwar Mewat Institute of Education and Development, Jatan
Sansthan, Shiv Shiksha Samiti from Rajasthan; and Save A Mother, Dr. Shambhunath Singh
Research Foundation, Sustainable Human Development Association, and Swarg from Uttar
Pradesh in the form of suggestions they provided in the text and layout for improving the
user experience.
Pedaling towards a bright future
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Annexure
142
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Annexure 1: Further reading on strategic engagement
Strategic Engagement
Strategic engagement, or more popularly known as advocacy, is defined differently by
different organisations66,67,68. Some popular definitions include:
… working with other people and organisations to make a difference. (CEDPA, 1995)
… the effort to influence people, primarily decision makers, to create change, which results in
comprehensive policies and effective programme implementation, through various forms of
persuasive communication. (WHO, 2008)
… a sustained process of using data and evidence tactically so as to change, influence or impact
policies that affect the lives of a section of the society which is disadvantaged. (UNICEF, 2010)
... a set of organised activities designed to positively influence policies and actions of
stakeholders for achieving better outcomes for children, women and men. (Save the Children,
2011)
… a political process by which individuals or groups aim to influence the behaviour,
relationships, actions, activities, agendas, policies and/or practices of target actors for a
particular cause or goal, within political, economic and social systems. (HIVOS, 2018)
Strategic engagement v/s other forms of engagement for change
Strategic engagement, lobbying, campaigns and activism are often interchangeably used to
describe the efforts made to bring about policy change. They are all mechanisms to draw
the attention of decision makers to a particular issue in an organised manner. The basic
differences between them in terms of the strategies and activities are presented here69,70,71
66 Public charities can lobby: Guidelines for 501(c)(3) Public Charities. Bolder advocacy. Alliance for Justice. 2018
67 Dr. Paul Zeitz. What is advocacy? What is activism? Global Health Advocacy and Activism. Department of Global Health, George Washington
University. 16 January 2008
68 Advocacy Workshop Module. Futures Group
69 U.S. Private Foundation Funds and Advocacy. https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/advocacy-guidelines.pdf
70 Advocacy versus Activism: What is the difference? Communication4health. February, 2013 https://communication4health.wordpress.
com/2013/02/22/advocacy-versus-activism-what-is-the-difference/
71 Building your advocacy toolbox: Advocacy vs. Lobbying. Nat Assoc County & City Health Officials. July 2016. https://www.naccho.org/uploads/
downloadable-resources/flyer_advocacy-na16-002.pdf
Annexure
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What is its
standout
feature?
Tools used
What it can
change?
Target group?
Does it mainly
target people
who have
influence over
others?
Strategic
Engagement
Lobbying
Activism
Awareness
campaign
Uses compelling
narratives or
messages based
on evidence-
informed
solutions to
educate and
involve key
thought leaders
and build
visibility on the
issue
Uses access to a
legislative body
or government
officials to
influence
their decision
on particular
legislation, or a
part of it
Actions or
intervention to
increase public
awareness
on particular
issues and to
exert political
pressure
Raise awareness
on a specific
issue by
informing,
educating and
communicating
with wider
target audiences
Policy briefs,
Policy briefs,
Protests,
presentations, presentations, dharnas
visual aids
visual aids
(strikes), rallies,
based on
based on
boycotts,
research;
research; formal public interest
formal one-to- and informal litigations and
one and small meetings
petitions
group meetings,
conferences and
seminars
Social media
campaigns,
events and
education
materials (print,
videos, digital)
Policies,
implementation
of policies, laws
and practices
Policies and
laws
Policies and
laws
Awareness and
behaviours
Decision
Decision
Decision
Particular age
makers, leaders, makers, leaders, makers, leaders, group, gender,
policy makers, policy makers, policy makers residents of an
people in a
people in a
area, etc.
position to
position to
inform and
influence
educate
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
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Annexure 2: Understanding FCRA
Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2020
FCRA applies to all associations, groups and NGOs which intend to receive foreign
donations. They can receive a foreign contribution for social, educational, religious,
economic and cultural purposes.
The FCRA72 regulates the acceptance and utilisation of foreign contribution to ensure that
such contributions do not interfere or influence political decision making in the country. It
does not allow foreign donors to fund any organisations of “political nature” which engage
in political action such as bandhs, hartals, raasta roko and jail bharo thus limiting the kinds
of activities funded. The Act also mentions that the Central government can prohibit the
acceptance of foreign funding where it feels that it is likely to affect public interest.
Under the Act, certain persons are prohibited to accept any foreign contribution (which
means they cannot be paid or their expenses covered from a grant under foreign
contribution). These include: election candidates, editor or publisher of a newspaper,
judges, government servants (any person who is in service of the government, or
remunerated by the government for the performance of any public duty), members of any
legislature and political parties, among others.
For detailed information please visit https://fcraonline.nic.in/home/index.aspx
72 Advocacy, Rights and Civil Society: The Opportunity for Indian Philanthropy. Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy, Ashoka University.
Annexure
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Notes
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Educated Girls, Empowered Families
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About
Population Foundation of India is a national non-profit
organisation that promotes and advocates for the effective
formulation and implementation of gender-sensitive
population, health and development strategies and
policies. The organisation was founded in 1970 by a group
of socially committed industrialists under the leadership of
the late JRD Tata and Dr Bharat Ram.
Address
Head office:
B-28, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi – 110016
T: +91 11 43894 100 | F: +91 11 43894 199
Regional offices:
Bihar:
123A, 1st Floor, Patliputra Colony, Patna – 800013
T: +91 612 2270634
Rajasthan:
C-9, Shiv Marg, Shyam Nagar, Jaipur – 302019
T: +91 141 4104771
Uttar Pradesh:
C-3, Nirala Nagar, Opposite Thandi Park, Lucknow – 226020
T: +91 522 4005091
www.populationfoundation.in
Facebook: @PopFoundIndia
Twitter: @PopFoundIndia
Instagram: @populationfoundationindia