Advocacy Capacity Assessment


Short summary

The Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool (ACAT) is a tool that can support you to assess the advocacy capacity of your organization and is specifically designed for youth-led organizations. Through the assessments, you will reflect on both your advocacy strengths and challenges through an interactive methodology. By using the outcomes, you will build an impactful capacity development plan that will enable your organization to increase the impact of your advocacy. CHOICE has supported over 10 youth-led organizations with such assessments in the past and is looking forward to work with you!

What capacity strengthening support can we provide on this topic?

The ACAT is in no way an evaluation tool or a test – there is no wrong or right! The ACAT supports the identification of where capacities may be strengthened, and what key strengths an organization can capitalize on- if you've got it, flaunt it! It is a participatory and user-led process and enhances dialogue about how the organization views and conducts advocacy and the different roles people can play in doing so. 

What could the CS look like? 

CHOICE has developed a youth-friendly Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool (ACAT) especially designed for youth-led organizations. This tool is made more accessible than traditional ACAT’s by using easy-to-understand language and relevant questions tailored to youth-led organizations. The ACAT can be the starting point of a more long-term trajectory, through which we will jointly find out what advocacy capacity strengthening will take YLOs to their desired next level.

The ACAT starts with a self-reflection survey to take stock of where you are now as an organization, followed by several in-depth discussions on the outcomes of the survey, and is concluded by building an action plan around the key outcomes of the process to strengthen your advocacy capacity in the future. CHOICE can support by providing the relevant tools for self-reflection, providing support for the in-depth discussions (potentially as a facilitator or an external advisor), and finally support you in building an effective action plan to realize your ambitions.

What tools are available?

• ACAT
• Several workshops on different organizational and strategic topics, which all have been piloted with different YLOs. These workshops can be the next step after an ACAT has been conducted, or sometimes (in the case of smaller sessions) can be added to the ongoing ACAT process. For example: the basics of UN advocacy.

What languages can this CS support be provided in?
English and French