International Lobby & Advocacy 2017 In 2016, NIMD and AWEPA worked on the development of a draft International Lobby and Advocacy (ILA) strategy. The ultimate goal of the ILA efforts within the context of the SP Programme is to reinforce the in-country lobby and advocacy capacities and activities of implementing partners in the countries that AWEPA and NIMD work in, with the aim to influence the enabling environment for effective policy influencing. By creating interlinkages between lobby and advocacy activities at the various levels (national, regional and international) and strengthening the policy influencing capacities of local actors, the impact of lobby and advocacy on issues that emanate from national policy agendas is sought to be maximised. 

In 2016 the focus of the ILA strategy was mainly on the ILA efforts towards the EU, in light of the current review of a number of EU funding instruments (EDF and EIDHR), which provide an opportunity under the SP to encourage greater funding to political parties and parliaments. A number of specific activities were implemented through the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), to promote a more political approach to development, and to gather input for and information on the review processes. In 2017 the ILA efforts towards the EU will be continued, with the aim to influence the funding review processes, and to create more awareness on the critical role of parties and parliaments in development. In order to identify possible entry points for ILA for particular countries, staff and local partners will be supported on an individual basis in their ILA efforts through EPD. 

Furthermore, in 2017 the focus will be on assessing the possibilities for targeted ILA efforts towards a number of regional organisations. To this end, NIMD and ECDPM will conduct a regional assessment, aiming to compare the policy issues emanating from the national policy agenda’s from NIMD’s partners with the policy priorities and influencing channels of the African Union (AU) and Eastern African Community (EAC), to identify potential entry points for an ILA strategy towards these regional bodies. In addition to that, potential entry points for ILA efforts in the Asian region will be explored. 

Lastly, in 2017 the focus will be on further developing the skills and capacities of local implementing partners to effectively engage in ILA, by focussing on their capacity to relate to, understand and influence relevant regional and international organisations, and by coordinating the various ILA efforts. In that regard, local implementing partners will be capacitated in terms of the policy priorities, programmes and activities of the EU, AU and EAC, and provided with an analysis of the policy influencing possibilities. In addition to that the Global Partnership for Multiparty Democracy (GPMD) will be supported to step up its lobby and advocacy efforts in 2017. The GPMD was formally launched in October 2016 to stimulate cooperation and coordination of ILA efforts by individual member organisations. In 2017 the GPMD secretariat will be supported to roll-out a joint ILA strategy and to organise the first set of activities. Political actors are defined as the combined main target group of the Strategic Partnership: - (representatives of) political parties - politicians - (Members of) Parliament and its Committees - Other elected representatives at local levels. NIMD will primarily focus on political parties.