ABANTU @ 10

Advocacy, Public Awareness and Networking

ADVOCACY, PUBLIC AWARENESS AND NETWORKING (APAN)

Aim
The aim of ABANTU’s advocacy, public awareness and networking (APAN) functional area is to develop and coordinate advocacy, public awareness and networking initiatives that lead to the realization of women’s right and gender equality.

Objectives
The specific objectives of ABANTU’s APAN function are as follows:

• Initiate, manage and coordinate gender responsive advocacy programmes in Ghana and the rest of the West Africa sub-regions.
• Advocacy campaigns that strengthen the capacity of women’s organization to work as a collective utilising their adversity as strength.
• Develop relevant and gender responsive advocacy materials to enhance the effectiveness of ABANTU’S advocacy areas of governance, peace-building and climate change.
• Utilise advocacy events/moments as entry points for women’s movement building around critical issues of women’s right and gender equality.
• Strengthening capacity of women’s group/organizations and ABANTU’s staff in developing, delivering and sustaining different advocacy campaigns that lead to the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality.

Target Groups
ABANTU’s target a number of groups and individuals for its advocacy work. These individuals can be divided into three (3) groups:

• Goil Society
  • Women’s Groups /Network/Coalitions
• Mainstream civil society organisations
• Think Tanks
• Policy Makers
  • Assemblywomen
  • Officials of District Assemblies
  • Parliamentarians
  • Political Parties
• Media
  • Print Media
  • Electronic Media
  • Women’s Media Associations

Achievements
ABANTU has had the following impact with its APAN initiatives:

• Development of high impact advocacy initiates with over eighty-five per cent (85%) success rate.
• Initiation, development and wider dissemination of the Women Manifesto for Ghana.
• Initiation, coordination and sustaining two important coalitions on governance and climate change namely;
• Women Manifesto Coalition(WMC)
• Gender Action on Climate Change for Equality  and Sustainability(GACCES)
• Effective and cutting-edge institutional capacity on advocacy, public awareness and networking.
• Developed a core of about twenty (20) women’s rights advocates to lead critical campaigns in governance, peace building and climate change across the West Africa sub-regions.
• World – class advocacy materials on advocacy developed to promote women’s rights and gender equality.

Types of Advocacy
ABANTU implements the following types of advocacy campaigns:

• Campaigns to enhance women’s equal participation in politics and decision-making.
• Campaign to mobilize women with the local governance system to enhance their voice and visibility.
• Campaign to strengthen effective participation of women on political parties.
• Campaign to ensure effective implementation of demands contained in the Women’s Manifesto Coalition (WMC).
• Contributing to the organizational development and sustainability of other networks and coalitions on women’s right and gender equality including the Network for Women’s Right in Ghana (NETRIGHT) and the Domestic Violence Coalition (DVC).
• Campaign to ensure promotion of gender issues in Climate Change.
• Campaign on effective implementation of UN Resolution 1320 to ensure women’s rights and gender equality in peace building.
• Campaign to ensure effective and gender responsive leadership among younger women and girls in the society.

Challenges
The following have been some of our challenges:

• The critical impotence of policy advocacy and the challenge of promoting everyday basic services needed by women such as water, healthcare, energy and education.

Way Forward
In the years ahead, we are determined to sustain our advocacy work through effective movement building using feminist methodology principles