Facilitated Advocacy for Sustainable Development ― An Approach and Its Paradoxes

Facilitated advocacy is an approach to development initiatives that enables people situated across varied professional, societal, economic and educational levels to engage with each other in equitable ways to identify changes in policy and practice to improve livelihoods and personal and professional circumstances. This book sets contexts for and defines facilitated advocacy and suggests a role for the approach as the world once again embarks on a set of UN-coordinated development goals. The skills and experience required to facilitate disempowered groups to advocate for the changes that they can identify that they need are outlined in this book and illustrated through a series of case studies co-authored with project participants. These range from standing up for the rights of tribal communities in eastern India and delivering services to the poorest communes in Vietnam to developing an inclusive fisheries policy in Pakistan and building social businesses in rural villages in West Bengal. Furthering research in the field of development studies by being critically reflective of what was tried, succeeded or failed, and then adapted and replicated, this book offers theorists and practitioners an opportunity to examine their own work in contrast to what is presented.

Graham Haylor is a scientific executive director, with a background in poverty alleviation, and a technical specialist in aquaculture and fisheries management. He has designed and led a range of multi-lateral, multi-donor communications and learning initiatives. Each one has linked research providers, local impact on livelihoods of poor people, and uptake at policy levels, and has emphasised multi-cultural/linguistic and inter-sectoral communications. Graham Haylor has over 30 years of international experience of research, outreach and policy engagement and is the author of 150 publications within the fields of aquaculture, fisheries, rural development, communications and impact. He is currently the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Science, based in Stockholm, Sweden. For twelve years, William Savage was on the faculty of the Center for Language and Educational Technology of the Asian Institute of Technology near Bangkok. He then began working as an organizational and community development facilitator, consulting with international and local NGOs, inter-governmental and international organizations, and government agencies. This has involved facilitation, proposal development, documentation and editing - in the areas of advocacy, capacity-building, communications, human resources, information, monitoring and evaluation, participation, partnerships and networking, policy change, resource mobilization and strategic planning - within the fields of agriculture, child rights, climate change, culture, disasters, education, fisheries, health, HIV and AIDS, language, livelihoods, and women’s rights. The author of 24 articles in journals, books or proceedings, two books, and 25 conference papers and presentations, he is based in Louisiana, USA.