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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Bonnie L. Shepard, MEd, MPA, International Health and Human Rights Program, Harvard School of Public Health, 651 Huntington Ave. 702D, Boston, MA 02115, 617-432-1008, bshepard@hsph.harvard.edu

Advocacy organizations often have difficulty in evaluating their impact and showing results, because many factors and groups contribute to policy change, so that the contribution of any one initiative or group is hard to ascertain. Furthermore, the theories of social and political change underlying different advocacy strategies are often unstated assumptions, with no intermediate results made explicit. Evaluations of advocacy programs, therefore, need to identify results that are attributable to a particular program or organization, and bring to light the theorized pathways to change. This paper discusses how to meet these two evaluation challenges, highlighting the case of organizations that advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Advocacy on some of these issues -- such as access to safe abortion services, access to condoms in HIV prevention programs, and sex education programs for adolescents --operates in a polarized cultural and political environment, creating barriers that must be addressed in the initiative's theory of change, results framework, and evaluation. First, the paper discusses the main variations in the theories of socio-political change underlying advocacy strategies. Second, it illustrates the construction of results frameworks with indicators that can be collected through internal monitoring. Finally, the paper identifies evaluation questions that focus on strategic tensions in highly polarized socio-political environments, and discusses how evaluation plans can analyze the quality of strategic decisions. The paper draws on the author's 25+ years of working with, studying, and evaluating advocacy organizations, and a literature review on theories of political change.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participants will be able to

• Describe the theories of social and political change that underlie different advocacy strategies, with attention to socio-cultural and political context affecting them
• Apply these theories to construct results frameworks and indicators for three types of strategies in reproductive and sexual rights advocacy initiatives
• Identify the strategic tensions in advocacy initiatives, and potential evaluation plans to analyze these tensions.

Keywords: Advocacy, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation