Communication and advocacy for climate action

Human rights are rights inherent to all people, without distinction of race, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, language, religion or any other condition. These rights must be guaranteed by States. As women and environmental defenders, we have specificities that States must consider and that we can demand. The current political, economic and environmental situation is so complex that it not only leads us to demand our rights, but also to avoid the loss of some of them.

We share some contributions from colleagues from our workshop on 12/4/21:

“Incidence is when we have an action in a certain space or action for women’s rights, against violence, for climate action. When we have an action in something specific and we want to influence exactly to transform, to have better living conditions.”

“I like the word incidence because I always interpreted it as building agendas with others. That is, to influence but not to co-opt or totalize in relation to others, but to manage to build something that is no longer one’s own but of more actors. Influencing governments means that governments listen to us, in the first instance, but in the second instance it is that we have a dialogue that creates a shared agenda. Influencing other organizations is to call them to think about projects together.”

As the testimonies mention, political advocacy is a process that we can carry out as organizations with the objective of influencing public policies, practices, political agendas, resource allocation decisions within political, economic, social and institutional systems and thus our RIGHTS and generating TRANSFORMATIONS.

We always say that one of our goals is to participate in decision-making, and we maintain this in different areas, whether in the organization, in the community or in the public sphere.

But in practice we find that State institutions are so weak or so compromised with influential economic groups that, although our proposals on establishing or reforming public policies, legislation, programs or projects are fair and necessary, they are not able to give us favorable responses or do not have the will to accept them because they consider that the initiatives are within their power and convenience.

“Often, the meaning of political advocacy is to make governments carry out their policies based on the needs of the people. The idea of ​​having a political impact refers to the capacity we have to make governments understand the needs that women have and incorporate this into their policies, which must be based on the desires of the population and not those of the rulers. In Brazil, we want to have an impact because there are increasingly greater differences between the political agendas of the rulers and economic groups – which are in their own favor and benefit – and the populations, which are increasingly impoverished. For us, the meaning of influence has that character. Public policies belong to us.”

This situation is experienced not only at the national level, but also at the regional and municipal levels. Given these circumstances, we find ourselves in the need to carry out processes of persuasion and even of demand in order to influence decision-makers in order to achieve the acceptance of our proposals.

We propose the following trigger questions to think about the mechanisms of incidence from our organizations:

1. What is political incidence?
2. Why do we want to have an impact?
3. What specific problems in our community do we want to have an impact on?
4. Which actors do we want to influence?
5. What are our goals and strategies for incidence as an organization?

Below, we share testimonies about the different mechanisms of influence used by women’s environmental defenders’ organizations in Latin America:

Argentina

“One strategy that we use at Plurales is to give visibility to the struggles that women are having in their territories, the conflicts that exist, either by making statements about the issues, publishing on the web, or actions in the street.”

Brazil

“Our strategy of influence is grassroots and territorial work in the communities. From this we can influence other environments, formal and informal spaces.”

Bolivia

“It is important that as women we can lead, because it is from there that we can have the most influence. Whether in the neighborhood council, the mothers and fathers council, the school council. In any place where we can make our voice heard we can influence policies.”

El Salvador

“In our organization we have a concern: we want to influence the municipality of Marcovia to declare ‘Zero straw’ because it harms the environment and the olive ridley turtle. The strategy we are using is to make an agreement with the mayor so that he helps and supports us. In this way we are seeking to influence.”

Ecuador

“It is really very complicated to influence public policies with a neoliberal State that is destroying the rights gained over many years. The same thing happens with women’s rights, they are even without funding. Even if we continue to insist on the authorities, they are very small conquests. I think that the most important thing is the organization. It is through it that there can be the possibility of influencing. Ecuadorian politics has very little structure in policies that are aimed at women. It has been achieved but it is with the struggle, the defense of the territories and the unity with other organizations of the popular sectors.”

To achieve favorable political will for proposals, we have to carry out properly planned actions that ensure that we effectively influence decision-makers. These actions often include raising awareness among the general population to create public opinion favorable to public policy proposals. In this sense, communication plays a key role when planning advocacy actions.

Communication allows us to:

• Inform the population and promote public conversation about our problems, demands and proposals.
• Generate influence over the people who decide the public policies that affect us (councilmen, mayors, ministers, legislators, etc.). Negotiate and convince those who make decisions, so that the points of view and proposals of social groups are taken into account.
• Become a reference voice for decision-making and that our proposals are taken into account when defining public policies. Articulate efforts around political positions and proposals for change within the group that promotes an advocacy process.
• Call for action for change.

2 dimensions of communication

When we refer to Communication, it is worth mentioning that it has two dimensions:

• External: from our organization outwards (governments, citizens, other organizations).
• Internal: is that which occurs within our organization, together with and among colleagues. Sometimes we think a lot in terms of external communication and we forget about internal communication, when this is central because it allows us to unify our struggle strategies, the action we are going to carry out, and generate a sense of belonging to the group.

COMMUNICATION WITH A GENDER PERSPECTIVE

ENVIRONMENTAL CONFLICTS GENERATE SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPACTS. As advocates we must put these impacts on the PUBLIC AND MEDIA AGENDA in the most INTEGRAL way possible, as part of their advocacy tasks. IT IS KEY TO HIGHLIGHT IN THE MESSAGES WHAT GENDER IMPACTS THE PROJECT OR THE REPORTED ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM CAUSES.

Questions to diagnose the situation of your organization regarding communication.

• What communication channels/strategies do you use now?
• Have you managed to have an impact, beyond civil society in general?
• Is there someone who is in charge of communication within the organization or do you all do the task?
• Do you have any professional support for communication?
• How often do you use communication tools?

To define our strategy and communication plan for political advocacy, we can identify 3 main moments:

1. Communication diagnosis for advocacy
2. Definition of the strategy and communication plan
3. Implementation of the strategy, sustainability over time and evaluation

1) DIAGNOSIS

At this point we must:

• Select our topic or problem for advocacy.
• Identify social actors involved (characterization, roles and link with the problem).
• Analyze the priority of the problems according to the political strategy of the advocacy process.
• Identify the impacts we want to achieve.

2) DEFINITION OF THE STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATION PLAN

At this point we must:

• Define communication objectives based on the change we want to achieve (make something unknown visible, open a debate, call for a mobilization, etc.).
• Analyze possible ways to achieve them (define the target audiences and estimate the communication channels for the messages).
• Plan the communication: objectives, activities, message content, media and products, those responsible, times and available resources.

3) IMPLEMENTATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND EVALUATION

At this point we must:

• Produce the materials and develop the activities we planned.
• Implement a monitoring and systematization of the actions we undertake and their results.
• Evaluate and review whether or not we meet the goals and what changes we must make for our next plan, generating input for a new diagnosis. Think about our:
  • Achievements
  • Failures
  • Things we can improve

Let’s think…

• What communication strategies have been useful in our organizations?
• What advice would we like to give to other colleagues regarding communication?

First of all, communication for advocacy must be 3D communication:

• DENUNCIATION: Report violations of human rights and identify those responsible
• DEMAND: Demand rights
• DESIRE: Communicate and promote proposals

Below, we share a series of “good practices” that were exchanged between colleagues who participated in our workshop.

“For the last two years, we have used training processes as a strategy. And we have used social media with our demands, activities, actions, such as our campaign against violence towards rural women. This, for me and for other women, has been a successful experience, but it is not easy for us as rural, peripheral, black women…”

“We work on communication as a right of the working class. And it is also important to bring up our identities in communication: as peasant, rural women… I would say that instead of 3D, our communication should be 4D, because communication should be direct, that it should dialogue with the other.”

“Not all women have internet. So face-to-face communication and word of mouth are central. Talking to each other about what is happening in person, since we do not have the possibility of being connected.”

“Even radio, which is a medium widely used in rural areas, is cutting programs and charging for the women to play, even on radio stations that were popular. What has helped us is having short videos and brief pamphlets that talk about women’s rights, sexual, reproductive and environmental rights.”