Advocacy & Lobbying

Advocacy and lobbying are activities that represent and promote the needs of specific groups in political and social arenas. One such group is women, who can collectively pressure their leaders for legislative reforms to protect and promote women’s rights and concerns. It is the goal of advocacy groups and lobbyists to ensure that both the public and politicians understand and support their cause, so that it gains strength and credibility. Securing rights and gains for women requires coalition-building, funding, civic education, awareness-raising and individuals willing to lead the way.

While the goals of advocacy and lobbying are similar, the processes are distinctly different. Advocacy involves gaining and exercising power to influence a political action. Employing methods such as demonstrations, public campaigns and civic education, advocacy can be the primary mission of international agencies and civil society organizations seeking to influence global and national decision makers. Women worldwide frequently organize themselves for advocacy purposes, drawing on their collective power to affect legislation, official policies and governmental programs. Lobbying, however, refers to influencing the government and its leaders. Lobbyists attempt to sway policy makers and legislators to address specific issues, often by introducing or revising legislation and policy. Lobbying activities may include private meetings with decision makers, public campaigns and demonstrations.

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From the Library:

Facing Challenges and Pioneering Feminist and Gender Studies: Women in Post-colonial and Today's Maghrib

This paper reveals the positive role that Maghribi women have been playing in the overall development of their countries. Four major interrelated domains where these achievements are significant are considered: women’s reproductive rights, women’s movements, women’s legal rights, and women’s knowledge production. Issues related to these domains are analyzed from a broad comparative perspective which involves an overall political and economic contextualization.

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Gender Responsive E-governance: Exploring the Transformative Potential

This primer highlights some of the key gender-related issues regarding e-governance in the context of UNDP’s Democratic Governance work. It presents entry points for continued programming on gender and e-governance, and makes recommendations for closing the existing gender gap in specific e-governance interventions prepared by UNDP practitioners and its partners.

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Getting Our History Right: How Were the Equal Rights of Women and Men Included in the Charter of the United Nations?

The article analyzes the founding conference of the United Nations to find out how a nearly completely male-dominated assembly proclaimed the equal rights of men and women as part of the fundamental human rights. The participation and proceedings of the conference are studied on the basis of official UN documents,
autobiographies from women delegates and reports.

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Reproductive Health and Rights in the United Nations – Normative Action Amidst Political Controversy and Religious Contestation

The article follows the evolution of norms and policies related to reproductive health and rights in the United Nations from the first decades after World War II to 2007. The focus is on the policymaking processes related to the large world conferences, particularly on population and women during the 1970s, 80s and 90s and the follow-up meetings around and after the turn of the century.

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European Women's Lobby 50/50 Campaign

The “50/50 Campaign for Democracy” of the European Women’s Lobby is a push for concrete action to increase women’s presence in politics and in the 2009 European Parliament elections. 5050_campaign The Campaign is endorsed by prominent personalities across Europe such as President and Vice President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso and Margot Wallström, Nobel Price winner Orhan Pamuk, Prime Minister of Belgium Yves Leterme, Slovenian President Danilo Türk, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and former President of the European Parliament Simone Veil.

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European Women's Lobby Lobbying Kit on Parity Democracy

The Kit has been produced in the context of the EWL Campaign “No Modern European Democracy without Gender Equality” to be launched officially in September 2009. The Kit comprises of two sections. In the first section, you will find an Action Kit, which includes all the steps that you can take to improve the presence of women in European decision-making. The second section provides in-depth information and clarifies certain myths in relation to parity democracy and quotas. The Kit aims at helping women’s non-governmental organizations and other interested actors to put pressure on political parties and decision-makers to introduce measures to advance parity in view of the EP elections and the nominations to be made for EU top jobs in 2009.

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