Protection Advocacy

About Protection Advocacy

Protection advocacy is a core humanitarian function aimed at influencing policies, practices, and decision-making to ensure the safety, rights, and dignity of affected populations. It is essential in situations of conflict, displacement, and crisis where people face risks such as violence, discrimination, forced displacement, and denial of access to basic services. Effective protection advocacy helps place the priorities and perspectives of affected communities at the centre of humanitarian action, promotes accountability of duty bearers, and helps ensure that humanitarian responses are inclusive and effective. The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) plays a critical role in advancing collective protection advocacy at global, regional, and country levels. Through coordination, analysis, and engagement with affected communities, duty bearers, humanitarian actors and donors, the GPC supports evidence-based, collaborative advocacy on key protection risks and priorities within and across operations and promotes the integration of protection across the humanitarian response. Through its advocacy efforts, the GPC is committed to amplifying the voices of affected populations and frontline responders to ensure that protection concerns inform policy and operational decision-making.

GPC Advocacy Working Group

The Global Protection Cluster itself is not an advocacy and campaigning platform, however it is well positioned to convene a powerful collective voice through its broad membership, leverage the particular relationships and decision-makers it has access to and by supporting ‘from behind’ when others are positioned to lead and have the most influence. The GPC has a particular role to play in amplifying advocacy efforts being led at the national level by Protection Clusters and their members, based on the analysis of key protection risks and trends, leveraging related ‘openings’ for influencing, and playing a powerful convening role that enables it to bring together diverse protection allies in support of a shared advocacy objective.

The GPC has set up an Advocacy Working Group (AWG) that aims to advise on and help advance the GPC’s advocacy strategies and actions at global levels. It complements, and further supports where needed, the GPC global team’s advocacy support provided to country Protection Clusters.

To join the Advocacy Working Group, please reach out to Alison Kent ([email protected])

Terms of Reference