Developing an Advocacy Strategy for Promoting Gender Equality in the Health Workforce
This overview is designed to help you plan your advocacy work strategically by guiding you through the development of an advocacy strategy. An advocacy strategy can help you plan and coordinate advocacy efforts to promote equal opportunity, non-discrimination and gender equality in the health workforce.
Advocacy is defined as any action(s) directed at policy-makers or other decision-makers to change or review policies, positions, funding, programs, and/or legislation, in terms of creating more supportive policies, reforming or removing harmful policies, or ensuring the funding and implementation of supportive policies. The aim of advocacy is to target and influence these key stakeholders to make decisions that would be favorable to your chosen issue in terms of policies, programs and funding.
Advocacy should not be confused with information, education, and communication (IEC) efforts—which target individuals or communities with the objectives of achieving change in their awareness, attitudes, beliefs and actions for their own benefit. However, advocacy and (BCC)/IEC efforts are similar in that they both undergo a process to identify and segment audiences; undertake research to clarify issues; develop strategies and messages; and monitor and evaluate results.
In this section, we will describe a three-phase, nine-step advocacy approach adapted from CapacityPlus associate partner’s approach—the Partners in Population and Development (PPD) Advance Family Planning Strategy—which has been adapted and applied in public health contexts across sub-Saharan Africa.
This approach will help guide you build consensus, focus efforts and achieve change to promote equal opportunity, nondiscrimination and gender equality in the workforce.
Click on the arrows below to review all nine steps of advocacy strategy development.
Refer to the tool’s Resources section for additional details and tools, such as the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative Toolkit.
