by Amar Nijhawan, Amber Parkes and Julie Thekkudan Generation Equality Forum: A blueprint for gender equality “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights” – a key refrain from the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. This was a galvanising moment for the women’s rights and feminist movement globally, putting forward a bold vision for the realisation …
Using elections to amplify people’s voices
Elections can be an important influencing opportunity for people living in poverty. Rodrigo Barahona and Isabel Crabtree-Condor share what Oxfam has learned from our work in four countries. Elections are a defining feature of democracies. They are a formal moment when the average person on the street can exercise power by voting for the public policies they want to see. Issues …
Accommodating uncertainty in advocacy and campaign evaluation
Jim Coe and Rhonda Schlangen, experienced advocacy evaluators, discuss the evolving challenge of monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning in the context of influencing work. Over the last couple of decades, there has been a seismic shift in thinking about evaluating influencing work. As we argue here, we need to think critically about where we’ve got to and how to manage …
World-wide influencing: what is it?
A changing world poses new challenges, and opens up new opportunities, for Oxfam’s work to end poverty, inequality, and injustice. Steve Price Thomas, Oxfam International’s Director of Advocacy and Campaigns explains why Oxfam has adopted a ‘world-wide influencing’ approach, as part of a series on influencing for change. Our world faces seismic shifts—is Oxfam prepared to deal with them? More …
Influencing for social justice: nudge, shove, show or shout?
What do, closed door talks with civil servants about climate change, street theatre about the impacts of domestic violence, and anti-tax haven marches have in common? Answer: They’re all about influencing for a fairer, safer, greener world. Sally Golding and Ruth Mayne introduce the what, how and why of ‘influencing’ in the first of a new series of blog posts. …
Wikipedia: A tool for advocacy?
Esther Shaylor explains why she’s cleaning up Wikipedia and how it relates to her work as a water and sanitation engineer. When I was at college I was sternly warned to stay away from Wikipedia. The reason; because it can’t be verified as a resource, anyone can edit it and put anything up there. But increasingly over the years I …