Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilisation

This pillar encompasses ZNNP+’s efforts not only to advocate for the availability of services for people infected and affected by HIV, but also to create demand for these services so that their uptake among communities is enhanced.

Advocacy is the mainstay of ZNNP+’s mandate. In its basic form, advocacy is the act of speaking on behalf of or in support of another person, place, or thing. According to WHO (2004), advocacy for HIV & AIDS is the combined effort of a group of individuals or organisations to persuade influential individuals, groups and organisations through various activities to adopt an effective approach to HIV & AIDS as quickly as possible. Advocacy also aims at starting, maintaining, or increasing specific activities to a scale where they will effectively prevent HIV transmission among specific population groups and assist in treatment, care and support of PLHIV .

Successful advocacy is based on some key principles, including:

• Avoiding increasing harm- Advocacy activities should avoid increasing harm for people whose interests are being championed. As such, when planning for advocacy, efforts should be taken to identify intended and unintended consequences and the mechanisms needed to mitigate against such consequences.
• Protecting the rights of the people- Advocacy activities should aim at protecting the rights of the people whose interests are being championed. Consequently, efforts should be taken to carefully examine and research the issues facing the targeted populations and collect strong evidence which can be used to build strong cases.
• Balance between short-term and long-term goals- Advocacy activites should balance short-term pragmatic goals against long-term developmental goals. Although it is desirable to attain complete and lasting solutions, they usually take long to be realised. Consequently, advocacy efforts should also target short and intermediate results, which can be realised quickly
• Informed by research evidence- The objectives of advocacy should relate to the approaches and activities that have been shown by research to be effective in addressing HIV & AIDS. All advocacy activities should work towards implementing programmes that have been proven by research to be effective.