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Advocacy Program Direction
Fall 2011
Summary of the program directionFor the whole year EWB will push towards our goals by engaging the media in
communities across the country, by enabling Canadians to learn and take action, and work with decision makers (of whom MPs are a core part) to increase the effectiveness of the aid Canada delivers around the world.
Our focus for the fall semester is aid transparency, and in particular, the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Our aim is have Canada sign onto IATI by the meetings on international aid effectiveness happening this November 29 in South Korea.
To get Canada to sign onto IATI and to drive toward our long-term vision, we need to substantially scale up the work we are doing within and outside the chapter network.
Beyond this fall we may expand to other areas within aid effectiveness outside of aid transparency, or even outside of aid effectiveness. Keep your eyes open for these possible expansions. If you have questions – please ask; or if you have opinions on this be sure to share them.
Our Goals1. That Canada sign onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative in
advance of the November 29-December 1 High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea.
2. Build an incredible strong nation-wide advocacy network with the skills, knowledge, and resources that will allow every member to excel.
We also want to note that we are not only pushing the government to sign onto IATI – through these actions we are creating a more conducive environment for dialogue on international development in Canada with a longer-term vision of having our countries role in the world be much more effective in creating lasting positive change.
Our Focus: Sept-Dec 2011
This is not a comprehensive diagram of Canada’s role in the world as you may have noticed, but is just a way to show where we need to focus our efforts in the four-months ahead.
Success!Open Data Portal Launch in June 2011!
Focus 2011International Aid Transparency
Initiative• Our ask / demand:
– Canada should sign onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative before or during the High Level Forum happening from Nov 29 – December 1.
– This is an urgent opportunity for Canada to begin to gain its place among the most effective development organizations in the world.
• Details on IATI and suggested talking points (in the briefing) can be found here: http://chapters.ewb.ca/index.php?path=/public-outreach-and-advocacy/policy-platform
Why aid transparency at this time?• We focused in on aid transparency late last year because, amongst all of the pieces we
were suggesting, it appeared to be getting the most traction in conversations around the country and on parliament hill.
• We were also often hearing the suggestion – from MPs, from government and public relations specialists – that pushing more than one idea at a time was not effective.
• The traction aid transparency was getting was validated when CIDA launched the Open Data Portal in July. This shows that the government is taking our calls for transparency to heart and is taking action to make our aid more transparent.
• We are continuing our push for aid transparency leading up to the conference in the fall (see the slide on the forum on aid effectiveness later in this presentation) so that we take advantage of the traction these ideas are getting.
• It is very important for Canada to sign onto IATI – even above and beyond publishing a lot of their information through the Open Data Portal – because currently the information cannot be used effectively by Canadians and development experts to determine whether Canada is doing good development work. IATI will take us to that next step where people can engage with the information in a productive way that will lead us to much more effective aid.
Check out the Open Data Portal at the link below:
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/ACDI-CIDA.nsf/eng/FRA-511112638-L57
Intro: The High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea
We are urging the government to sign on to IATI before the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, scheduled for this November in Busan, South Korea. This Forum will be in part a check-in on previous commitments by donors on aid effectiveness made at the Paris and Accra Forums, with progress on transparency and IATI a key part of that check-in. Canada has fallen behind other donors in implementing aid effectiveness improvements and needs to step up and capitalize on this opportunity to present ourselves as leaders on this international stage. For some MPs, Canada’s international reputation is important and the proximity of this meeting can be used to push them to act.
Find out more here: http://chapters.ewb.ca/index.php?path=/public-outreach-and-advocacy/policy-platform/the-4th-high-level-forum-on-aid-effectiveness-(nov-29-dec-1-2011)
Or here http://www.aideffectiveness.org/busanhlf4
Opportunities for Influence Introduction
• On the next slide are notes on the great opportunities for influencing and engaging citizens, decision makers and the media. These, in our mind, are the key leverage points in the months ahead to create the change we are seeking.
• As we move into the fall we will be providing resources and support for you to drive these activities at your chapter. There is a ton of opportunity to drive this and be creative – our aim is to enable you to take the actions that will influence the right people at the right time.
• Of course, this being our second full year of doing advocacy work there will still be kinks in how we do it – so learn, challenge, suggest and make improvements as you go. Trying new approaches and sharing those with others will be key to us getting very effective in what we do.
Opportunities for Influence – Fall 2011Summary
Date Event Influence Point Suggested Planning Start Date
Sept 19 Media Engagement – Get your chapter members to send a letter to the editor of your local newspapers.
Welcome back your Members of Parliament – send a letter , e-mail or call their office.
MPs - who you are aiming to build a relationship with
Local media – this is the beginning of a building your name within your communities media.
Right away.
Oct 8-16
MP’s are back in their ridings – set up a meeting with your MP (need guidance?: go to chapters.ewb.ca or talk to James or Ian at the office, or anyone on the advocacy distributed team)
Mid-September
Oct 17 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty – Media Engagement
Local media – continued engagement of your local media is very important in keeping aid on the publics mind.
End of Sept, 1st week in Oct.
Nov 5-13
MPs are back in their ridings – how about inviting an MP to a chapter event?
Mid-October.
Nov 1 – Dec 1
Widespread – nationally unifying citizen engagement (i.e. public outreach) and media engagement.
Get tons of people in your community or on your campus to show their support or take action – and send the results to the local media and all the MPs that you know. This month is our most opportune time to influence the direction Canada’s aid takes coming out of the high level forum.
Early October if you want to hold something in early November.
Dec 2 Continue to build a relationship with your MP by sending them a holiday card by Dec 2.
Mid-November.
Late-Dec
Your MPs and local media may be hosting holiday events – be sure to attend!
For each of these opportunities we will be providing resources and guidance when we get closer to the event – in most cases at least a few weeks before the opportunity.
Why are these opportunities important?
• The opportunities shared on the previous slide are opportune times to apply pressure at the key influence points to create the change we are seeking. There are a combination of actions on the previous slide in the areas of citizen, MP and local media engagement.
• Having a portfolio of actions is key to build a short and long-term constituency of people who care about international development and who are taking actions to increase the effectiveness of that aid.
• One of the biggest lessons from last years advocacy work was that to get our ideas talked about and moving in decision making circles, we needed to get people and the media talking about it.
• The importance of doing media and citizen engagement (public outreach) was realized as increasingly important as we spoke with MPs as well. These MPs continually said that they wanted us to show constituency support and interest in what we are talking about. Getting letters to the editor, or stories published in the paper – or getting 50 or 500 people from your community to share their support for the changes we are proposing shows the decision makers (people like your MP) that they need to do something about it.
An important note / update to come.
• Another impt note:– In most of the opportunities above, there will be
online actions and promotion (ex. through facebook and twitter) in addition to those to take at your chapters. We will provide an update on the plans for these ASAP as they will sometimes directly complement the actions you are taking at your chapters.
– We will also be updating what is now “farn.ca” to be our online action site that can be used in many of the above actions.
• We hope that this and the resources we’ve shared will be a great launching pad for your advocacy action in the term (and year ahead).
Contact InfoThe staff: Ian Froude - ianfroude@ewb,caJames Haga – [email protected] Bourque (SCF) – [email protected] distributed team: Dan Raza - [email protected] Miller - [email protected] Blais –[email protected] Jerreat-Poole – [email protected] Stewart - [email protected] Langille - [email protected] Allana – [email protected]
