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INTRODUCTION

ADVOCACY: A TOOL TO SUPPORT THE NUTRITION CLUSTER TO DELIVER ITS MISSION

The Nutrition Cluster was established in 2006 as part of the Humanitarian Reform process. It is a partnership that aims to safeguard and improve the nutritional status of emergency affected populations by ensuring an appropriate Nutrition in Emergency (NiE) response at country level that is predictable, timely, effective, and at scale.

The Nutrition Cluster Strategic Plan 2014-2016 included, for the first time, Advocacy as a Cluster core function to support the achievement of its strategic priorities. With operational responses to all major humanitarian crises worldwide, Nutrition Cluster partners have distinct access to information about the impact and the response to crises that can –and should- be used to inform and influence major stakeholders at national, regional and international levels to ensure nutrition impact in emergencies, identifying gaps and bottlenecks and proposing solutions to improve programmes and address problems that programmes alone cannot solve.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS TOOLKIT?

Within the context of the Nutrition Cluster Strategic Plan 2014-2016, a series of consultations were carried out to develop the Nutrition Cluster Advocacy Strategic Framework 2016-2019, ensuring it was relevant and grounded in the experiences of the Nutrition Cluster.

The Nutrition Cluster Advocacy Strategic Framework 2016-2019 provides high level overall strategic direction and focus to guide the further development of Nutrition Cluster advocacy at all levels. This toolkit intends to assist the Cluster Lead Agency (CLA), UNICEF, Nutrition Cluster Coordinators, Information Management Officers, and Nutrition Cluster partners at country and global levels to develop, implement and monitor the parts of the Global Nutrition Advocacy Strategic Framework 2016-2019 that relate to them.

The Nutrition Cluster Advocacy Toolkit is not meant as a stand-alone guide on how to carry out advocacy activities. Instead, it is a practical guide for advocacy. It provides key questions for reflection, basic advocacy pointers and some advocacy tools to support Nutrition Cluster partners through the different stages of the advocacy cycle with a specific focus on advocacy for nutrition in humanitarian contexts. Previous advocacy experiences from the Nutrition Cluster and its partner organisations are used to illustrate the different areas in which advocacy can work.

HOW IS THE TOOLKIT STRUCTURED?

The toolkit is structured into two main chapters.

Chapter 1: Provides a general overview of what advocacy means for the Nutrition Cluster. Given the humanitarian nature of the work of the Nutrition Cluster, this chapter also highlights the key characteristics of advocacy in humanitarian contexts. Finally, it also looks into how advocacy complements and supports programmatic priorities and provides guidance to articulate advocacy at national and global levels.

Chapter 2: Following the advocacy cycle, Chapter 2 provides practical guidance and tools on the different steps to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate advocacy with a focus on humanitarian contexts. This Chapter is structured in the following sections:

Section 01 | Steps to develop an advocacy strategy

Section 02 | Steps to implement an advocacy strategy

Section 03 | Guidance for monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning