Advocacy impact assessment guidelines
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DFID’s major advocacy activities focus on influencing agencies and governments to invest in infrastructure. However, it is hard to find concrete evidence of the contributions that advocacy makes towards poverty eradication. These guidelines describe an approach that many NGOs take to assess advocacy impacts. There are different types of advocacy impacts, known as different dimensions of change, and these guidelines describe some indicators for the following dimensions: changes in policies and their implementation; private sector change; strengthening civil society; and aiding democracy and improving the material situation of individuals. Participatory monitoring and evaluation asks the people being affected by a project whether it has made a difference. However, this is often more complex than standard evaluation systems and it is necessary to be clear about the goals of the process and who should be involved. In order to assess impact, it is necessary to know the existing situation prior to advocacy, and to monitor progress against this. Once you have the information, it needs to be analysed. Lessons can then be learned and evaluation results used to demonstrate that advocacy works