TCI Staff Handbook
Advocacy for Impact Toolkit
TCI Staff Handbook
Advocacy for Impact Toolkit
Advocacy for Impact for TCI Staff
Securing Political Will, Policies, and Resources to Institutionalize Family Planning High-Impact Interventions
Advocacy for Impact for TCI Staff
Securing Political Will, Policies, and Resources to Institutionalize Family Planning High-Impact Interventions
What Is Advocacy?
Advocacy is the strategic process of influencing decision-makers and mobilizing communities to prioritize, support and fund sustainable, evidence-based Family Planning (FP) programs.
For The Challenge Initiative (TCI), advocacy means more than persuasion – it’s about empowering national and local leaders, health champions, and citizens to own and drive change that improves access to quality FP services for urban poor communities.
Why Mobilize Local Resources for FP?
Locally led advocacy ensures that FP programs are:
- Owned and Accountable: Local government takes responsibilities for FP commitment, strengthening planning, budget execution, and accountability for results.
- Sustainable: Cities transition from donor-dependent programs to self-reliant, institutionalized initiatives.
- Integrated: FP is embedded into broader health and development priorities like maternal health, youth empowerment, and economic growth.
- Equitable: Urban poor communities – often the most underserved – benefit from consistent, quality FP services.
Since 2016, TCI has partnered with 214 local governments in six regional hubs – East Africa, Francophone West Africa, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Pakistan – to demonstrate that locally owned advocacy works.
Although every city’s context is unique, common best practices have emerged. This toolkit distills those lessons into practical, action-oriented modules.
Toolkit Overview
This Advocacy Toolkit is designed to guide city teams, policymakers, and advocates through the five proven steps to mobilize and sustain local funding for evidence-based FP programs. Each module includes practical actions, real-world case studies, and key lessons from TCI’s nine-year journey of implementation.
Modules: Proven Steps to Effective Advocacy
- Understand the Budget Landscape and Timing
- Build a Compelling, Locally Relevant Advocacy Case
- Map Stakeholders & Activate Champions
- Strengthen Budget Tracking & Financial Management Capacity
- Identify and Leverage Existing Accountability Mechanisms and Forums
Other Areas of the Toolkit to Explore
What Cities Have Achieved
Cities across TCI geographies have shown that with the right tools, coaching, and political will, family planning (FP) programs can be locally led, sustainably financed, and scaled with impact. Here’s what success looks like:
- Strengthened local ownership and leadership
Cities institutionalized FP into planning and budgeting processes – such as India’s Program Implementation Plan (PIP) – and created dedicated budget lines that translated into real implementation, not just commitments.
- Institutionalized high-impact interventions (HIIs)
Cities embedded proven FP approaches into local systems, policies, and standard operating procedures, ensuring continuity beyond individual champions or donor support.
- Secured and spent local funding
Cities mobilized millions in local funding for FP and AYSRH, with increasing budget execution rates and improved tracking to prevent diversion to other health areas.
- Improved commodity availability
Cities advocated at national and subnational levels to reduce stockouts, replace expired supplies, and close training gaps in logistics and reporting systems.
- Activated champions and strategic advocacy
Cities identified and coached influential voices – health officials, youth leaders, religious figures – and channeled their advocacy to reach decision-makers who shape policy and control budgets.
- Diffused HIIs to neighboring areas
Cities extended successful FP approaches to rural and peri-urban local governments, expanding reach and equity across broader geographies.
- Improved service delivery and access
Cities scaled interventions like facility makeovers, whole-site orientations, and in-reaches/outreaches, resulting in measurable increases in contraceptive uptake and reduced adolescent pregnancy.
- Integrated broader health priorities
Cities layered maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) onto the TCI model, advancing a more comprehensive and integrated service delivery platform.
- Built systems for sustainability
Cities established coordination platforms, embedded FP into LDIPs and AIPs, and created feedback loops between data, planning, and funding decisions.
Core Principles of Effective Advocacy
Advocacy thrives when diverse champions – mayors, health officers, religious and community leaders, youth advocates, and CSOs – are consistently engaged across the value chain, from implementation to policy influence. Their sustained involvement ensures that FP priorities reach decision-making desks and remain visible across political transitions.
- Pakistan: Persistent relationships with district leaders sustained FP despite leadership changes and floods.
- India: Master coaches ensured HII ownership post-graduation, cascading best practices to new cities.
📊 Data + Stories = Persuasion
Combine simplified indicators (e.g., increasing modern contraceptive prevalence rates and what it means in terms of decreasing maternal mortality, keeping girls in school, lowering teenage pregnancy rates, less abortions, and economic benefits) with compelling narratives to humanize the message.
- East Africa: Mukono city used facility-level data and community stories to secure district funding.
- Francophone West Africa: Ziguinchor and Touba used health data and trusted messengers, such as the Chief Medical Officer, to shift mayoral support for FP.
📅 Align Advocacy to Budget Cycles
Timing matters. Advocacy is most effective when aligned with planning, approval, and review phases.
- Nigeria: Advocates in Delta state used a costed implementation plan to secure a dedicated FP budget line in the Annual Operational Plan, enabling proactive outreaches guided by state data.
- India: Persistent advocacy during the Program Implementation Plan (PIP) process secured the inclusion of HIIs/HIPs into the official Record of Proceedings (ROP), ensuring adherence and institutionalization within state health systems.
✅ Simplify Indicators and Use Data Visualizations to Show Progress
Avoid overwhelming decision-makers with complex data. Focus on 3–5 clear metrics.
- Philippines, India, and East Africa: Dashboards highlighted FP uptake trends, helping city officials prioritize funding and created a culture of regularly reviewing data – a practice that continues today.
📦 Bundle Interventions for Scale
Advocacy is most effective when paired with service delivery and demand generation in a unified package.
- India: TCI bundled advocacy and demand generation – leveraging ASHAs – with fixed-day static services (FDS) and outreach at Village Health and Nutrition Days (UHNDs). By aligning FP services with these community events, cities demonstrated the impact of HIIs, supplementing CHW efforts and creating visible demand. Impressed by the results, government officials scaled the bundled approach across facilities statewide.
