In a bid to strengthen the policy advocacy skills of team members, the SPEED project organised a two-day training in ‘Preparing and Implementing a Policy Advocacy Plan’. The training, conducted 4th -5th August 2016 at the School of Public Health Kololo Annex, attracted over 30 participants from SPEED partner organisations as well as from outside SPEED. Being a practical training, focus was on having two advocacy plans in places by the end of the training; ‘UHC and the financing challenges’ and ‘Malaria control and its effectiveness’.
The training introduced key components of policy advocacy to the participants including policy issue framing, using multiple stream framework, policy audience characterisation, developing policy advocacy objectives, key message designing, preparing policy memoranda and tips for delivering interpersonal policy briefing sessions.
Participants worked in groups to develop the advocacy plans for the respective issues that were elaborated before the training. During the course of the training, a third stream emerged working on road accident injuries.
Professor Ssengooba, SPEED Director facilitating the ‘malaria’ groups
The lead facilitator for the training, Associate Professor Freddie Ssengooba emphasised the need for academics to learn advocacy techniques to enhance their ability to influences policies and policymaking processes. He noted that in the past this was unheard of but as donors ask for ‘more value for the buck’, there is need for academics to demonstrate how their work is feeding into policy making processes and products.
Participants go through the policy advocacy objectives they individually crafted
The UHC and financing challenges group (facilitated by Dr. Elizabeth Ekirapa) during a discussion
