Overview – Civic Catalyst

Policy and Advocacy Lab and Project Closeout Meeting Report

Rebekah Cross — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 06:56:00 +0000

The Centre for Civic Engagement for 11 months has been running an initiative focused on Building a Concerted Movement of Youths and Women for Democracy and Development, whose aim was to nurture women’s and youths’ activism and advocacy capacities as well as help in building sustainable and visible organisations/platforms of youth and women who focus on inclusive democracy. We started with 16 participants from various backgrounds working in the areas of democracy, women and youth empowerment, development and technology, and women’s rights. The program was split into the following components: the incubation of youth/women-led platforms and organisations; improving the advocacy capacities of participants through online and face-to-face training on civic engagement and developing an advocacy strategy together with communities through the three (3) step policy advocacy lab process, which also was a platform to help foster more inclusive community dialogue on what which is a key component to advancing more inclusive democracy and development in Zimbabwe.

The workshop held on the 10^th of December 2024 was part of the process of completing the final two steps of the policy advocacy lab and to also formally closing out the project and handing out certificates of completion to participants.

Policy Advocacy Lab and Closeout 10 December 2024 Face-to face Meeting Report Download

Closing Event

Rebekah Cross — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 07:49:35 +0000

The team convened in Harare on the 10th of December to complete the Advocacy Lab process and to mark the official end of the Women and Youth Initiative (WAYI). This was the first cohort under the “Building a Concerted Movement of Youths and Women for Democracy and Development” project.

Certificate Photos

Policy Advocacy Lab Process Summary

SIVIO Institute — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 15:23:52 +0000

The Policy Advocacy Lab Process goes through 4 stages

Naming the problem
Create a framework
Gathering possible policy actions
Developing an advocacy plan and carrying out advocacy

The first stage is broken down below and the other four stages are outlined in the following document:

Naming the Problem

21-30 August

Activities

Introductory call to explain the stage
Organising a masterclass on gathering concerns (What is the problem and how are you affected by the problem)
Development of a timeline on the history and scale of the problem
Identify stakeholders to work with (google form with two questions: Who can fix the problem? What can they do?)
Literature on government policy actions
Summary of what has been done locally and in the region/ across the continent

What will you have learnt?

Skills to:

name a problem with your community by gathering and clustering concerns
how to develop a timeline on the history of the problem
identification of stakeholders who can address the identified problem
identification and summarisation of existing policy measures and existing advocacy initiatives.

The Policy Advocacy Lab Process_2024_Summary Doc Download