Strengthening advocates’ capacity is critical for enhancing advocacy processes and achieving desired results.
We trained 13 partners from Senegal, Liberia, and Nigeria on advocacy and social accountability as the lead implementing partners on the Strengthening community response to the HIV epidemic project funded by the Civil Society Institute for HIV and Health.
During the three-day workshop, we explored modules on sexual and reproductive health and rights, as well as existing HIV/SRHR laws and policies, to help them advocate for effective HIV response and programming, with a focus on adolescents and young people in West and Central Africa, particularly adolescent girls and young women.
Sub-modules explored included;
• Understanding sexual and reproductive health and key terms in SRHR, the emergence of SRHR, and SRHR, as it pertains to young people.
• Understanding the differences between laws and policies and the various SRHR laws and policies that exist on an international and regional scale.
• Understanding advocacy in depth; the fundamentals, steps in advocacy processes, policy change, and policy implementation; identifying advocacy issues and assessing needs
• Developing and implementing advocacy messages, social accountability, monitoring and evaluating advocacy efforts, and creating an advocacy strategy.
Participants, including those participating virtually from Senegal, joined the interactive session, engaged in group discussions, and presented on the subject matter. We are confident that our participants will employ effective strategies learned based on their feedback of the training. We can’t wait to hear success stories when they begin implementation in their respective locations.
