Civil Society Advocacy in Uganda: Lessons Learned

This 24-page study analyses cross-cutting issues and lessons learned from four cases outlining sustained advocacy efforts by civil society to influence policy in Uganda. The case studies span a range of issues, time frames, and levels of contribution to the desired policy impact, and demonstrate the role of advocacy in creating conditions for determining social justice, political, and civil liberties, and in giving voice to citizens and historically marginalised groups. Published by the Uganda National Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Forum and the Aspen Institute, the report intends to show the possibilities for organisations and people to shape public agendas, change public policies, and foster democratic change.

According to the report, over several decades, and with increasing intensity in recent years, the NGO sector in Uganda has participated in vigorous efforts to shape public policy. The emergence of such civil society advocacy in Uganda reflects the growing and welcome ability of civil society "to occupy space inadvertently ignored by government." The four case studies analysed in the case study are the following.

• The Save Mabira Crusade: An intense effort from August 2006 to October 2007 helped reverse a governmental decision to give a significant tract of protected forest to an agricultural developer. The “Crusade” and its broad array of partners and tactics helped produce an official retreat within 14 months, though the campaign suffered loss of lives in a demonstration that turned violent.
• The Anti-Corruption Coalition in Uganda (ACCU): Sporadic efforts prior to 1999 to address corruption in Ugandan society were formalised officially in 2004 through the ACCU and highlighted by an annual Anti-Corruption Week.
• The Domestic Relations Bill (DRB) advocacy campaign 1940-2011: A very long-term and as of the study period unsuccessful effort seeking to develop and pass a sweeping domestic relations bill to address persistent gender inequalities in property, marriage, and divorce law.
• Disability Advocacy in Uganda (PWD): Three efforts to improve the status of people with disabilities in Uganda, starting as early as 1970 in one case and as recently as 2005 in another, contributed to or benefited from passage of Uganda’s People with Disabilities Act in 2006.

Based on the case studies, the report notes some common observations:

Policy Objectives
According to the document overview, the four campaigns examined in this study differ significantly in the types of policy objectives they pursued. This includes raising the salience of or making an issue more visible and more politically significant to decision-makers, blocking a policy, or advocating for policy adoption, each with different approaches. Raising the salience of an issue or an affected group, as the PWD and ACCU campaigns sought to do, often requires emphasis on public outreach through mass media and other channels. Producing significant popular pressure to overturn a settled government decision also requires effective outreach.

Audiences
The study notes that the choice of outreach tactics should be driven by advocates’ choice of audience. The audiences for these efforts vary significantly, but included people immediately positioned to make policy changes as well as popular constituencies quite removed from centres of power. Advocates should choose audiences and outreach strategies carefully, with an eye towards conserving resources. They must reach those with the authority to make change happen or those who can influence the decision-makers. This may change over times. The ACCU case study focuses primarily on its ten-year record of holding an annual Anti-Corruption week. Initially, ACCU sought to raise consciousness among members of the general public about corruption. But as it grew, Anti-Corruption Week seemed increasingly to address itself to senior government officials closest to the yearly issue of choice; this narrowed the primary audience and may have helped advocates focus their efforts and increase their impact.

Activities
The four campaigns all undertook many types of advocacy activities in pursuit of their objectives. The activities described are quite consistent over the decades – with an increasing emphasis on cell-phone and internet outreach in recent years. The studies offer varying levels of detail about how the coalitions were managed; but all recognise that coalition governance and coordination have a significant impact on advocacy outcomes. The study made several other observations:

• Activities to engage and manage multiple partners, like meetings and conference calls and email communications in recent years, can consume valuable time for coalition members and the work of staff dedicated to this purpose. But all could be seen to build advocacy capacity that accumulated over time and – at least arguably – positioned the coalitions better to reach their policy objectives.
• These campaigns employed more or less consistently some combination of petition drives, mass rallies, letters to Parliamentarians, delegation visits to government Ministers, billboards, theme song competitions, letters to the editor, community theater, radio advertisements, SMS campaigns via cell phones, and other tactical elements.
• All the campaigns made direct or indirect contact with Members of Parliament. The DRB and PWD advocates could reach out to Members who were part of the constituency directly affected by the legislation or policies advocates were promoting. Several women Members were key champions for the DRB.

The report notes that there is a need to differentiate between outputs and outcomes. For example, the ACCU case study noted that early advocacy efforts had helped bring about the creation of government institutions that had the formal power to investigate, prosecute, and punish corrupt officials, but these institutions in fact did not investigate, prosecute or punish corruption. ACCU’s ongoing emphasis on policy implementation underscores their attention to achieving meaningful outcomes, demonstrating that real change requires keeping track of outcomes.