Advocacy and Partnership

In 2009, the MDG-F Secretariat in consultation with the various participating UN Agencies elaborated an Advocacy and Partnerships (A&P) strategy to help the MDG-F advance its main goal of accelerating progress on the MDGs and related goals while advancing collaborative UN efforts. It responds to the demonstrated need to strengthen citizen’s participation in development efforts and have clear advocacy interventions that push for more inclusive and responsive public policy and practice.

The Advocacy and Partnership strategy, further described below, provides a guiding framework within which to articulate national advocacy plans, and has been articulated at a macro level intentionally so that countries can use it to define context specific activities that lead to similar overall outcomes/goals. The overall strategy goal is to:

Accelerate progress on the MDGs by raising awareness, strengthening broad- based support and action and increasing citizen engagement in MDG related policy and practice.

Key Outcomes:

Increased awareness and support for the MDGs and the Fund both at policy and general public level.
Programmes are leveraged for increased MDG results and citizen engagement in MDG-F and MDG processes is strengthened
Improved accountability and transparency towards all partners

Focus Countries and National Advocacy Plans

Nine MDG-F focus countries will get additional support to elaborate and implement a national Advocacy Action plan using the same format that is provided in the table below. To the extent possible the overall goal and outcomes should remain the same, although countries may choose to work on one or two of the outcomes rather than all three (noting that ideally all three will be integrated in the plan). Countries may also choose to give higher priority to outcome one in the first year and then step up other outcome efforts in other years. There are several outputs outlined in the table below and many sample activities that will help in achieving them. Countries can choose from these as they are meant to serve as examples that can be adopted and/or adapted to the national context. The idea is to plan and implement advocacy and citizen participation actions that are flexible yet point in the same overall direction.

The National Advocacy Action plan should be embedded in national MDG and related priorities. Many joint programmes (JPs) already have awareness raising, civil society and/or advocacy components and these should feed into national advocacy plans. These components are already accounted for in JPs work plans and therefore can be financed and possibly implemented by the particular JP. To the extent possible, JP should also have advocacy plans that stem from the desired policy impact of their programmes and subsequently fit in with articulated national efforts/plans. The same format, with amended goal/outcomes can be used.

The implementation of the national advocacy plans should not lead to the creation of new structures within the UN but rather, where possible, should build on capacities that already exist. The UNCT has a long established experience with advocacy and communication for development and policy change. Articulating this strategy at the national level intends to give an impetus to these efforts and to the process of UN Reform and under the leadership of the Resident Coordinator ensure that the United Nations partners and communicates collaboratively to have greater impact at the national level.

The Advocacy and Partnerships MDG/MDGF Strategy focuses on National MDG priorities, with specific attention paid to those MDGs (and those aspects of the MDGs) that are considered relevant for the BiH context.