Evidence-Based Advocacy in Development Practice

In this article, Catherine Hine describes examples of experiences in evidence-based advocacy from HelpAge’s programmes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, to demonstrate how policy change can be catalysed when the voice of people living in poverty is prioritised. As stated in this article, the HelpAge International (HAI) network has the goal of a "world in which all older people fulfil their potential to lead dignified, healthy, and secure lives. The network was established in 1983 by five agencies in Canada, Colombia, India, Kenya and the United Kingdom (UK) and presently consists of more than 70 affiliate organisations in 50 countries, and a secretariat." The HelpAge network’s activities focus on the rights of disadvantaged older people to economic and physical security, healthcare and social services, and support in their care-giving role across the generations; and it seeks to support older people to play a role as key development actors and agents of change in addressing the strategic concerns of their communities. This article includes a discussion of the role and place of development practitioners in these activities.


HelpAge’s programmes in Moldova and in Kyrgyzstan were developed on the basis of participatory needs assessment processes that sought out self-help groups and civil society organisations (CSOs) to address solutions to older people’s experience of poverty and extreme poverty in communities where they worked, through seed monies for pilot action research and self-help initiatives. As stated in the article: "In Moldova, able-bodied older people developed volunteering schemes and the concept of Tyopli dom (warm house) with the support of the Balti-based organization 'Second Breath'. This very simple concept entailed able-bodied older people (and some younger volunteers) to visit housebound older people, and to talk, come up with shared responses to their concerns and celebrate festivals together. In Kyrgyzstan, one of the initiatives supported was a pilgrimage for older people as the older people applying for funds said that this visit would enable them to spend time together and develop hope for the future." Both of these were focused on the development of social capital to lay a basis for further work together.


HelpAge organised trainings in participatory project management, financial and fund-raising trainings, and evidence-based advocacy /media training (with accompanying seed monies). As a result of increased participation, older people successfully lobbied to update the social protection lists to ensure that many more people in their communities accessed their entitlements, and worked to ensure that they be reconnected to privatised water supplies.


HelpAge has supported older people to track the progress of the United Nation’s Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) through the Older Citizens Monitoring project and to assemble extensive evidence-based advocacy to be presented to governments that signed the Plan of Action and to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).


The document cites the following as ingredients central to evidence-based advocacy:

1. acting on the premise that people living in poverty already have all the potential /internal capacities they need to achieve changes for themselves;
2. hearing the voice of the hard to reach in order to understand what it really means to be living in poverty or extreme poverty;
3. joining with CSOs to facilitate and enable people living in poverty to address their own needs, generate their own evidence, and speak for themselves, whilst supporting them to find out for themselves how to influence policy effectively;
4. faithfully and authentically repeating the voices of people living in extreme poverty to reveal their hidden assets – their valuable skills, experiences, coping mechanisms;
5. setting up opportunities for policy and decision makers to see and hear directly the positive things that people living in poverty are doing for themselves;
6. supporting people living in poverty to develop specific and contextually relevant models;
7. focusing on prioritising how things are done (as well as what is delivered); supporting reflection and developing practice knowledge on what is not working, as well as what is, at all levels; and stimulating innovation and risk taking at all levels;
8. investing in high quality participatory capacity building that addresses real needs; and
9. investing in the essential competencies of language skills that can access the voices of those living in extreme poverty.