Lobbying means trying to influence or persuade individuals or groups with decision-making powers, such as people who make policies or laws, to support a position you believe is right or to take certain actions. Organisations and individuals can lobby to directly influence decisions being made in all spheres of government.

WHO CAN YOU LOBBY?

In the work you and your organisation do it is important to identify people whose cooperation or influence you need to help you with your work. These are usually decision-makers or key role-players. So, you lobby people who have the power to take action to support the needs and interests of those who do not have direct power and influence. Lobbying can be used to influence anyone with power, for example:

• Parents can lobby the school governing body to provide after-care at school
• Civics can lobby the police commissioner to have more police on duty at night
• HIV/AIDS activists and support organisations can lobby the president to provide affordable treatment for people who are HIV positive
• Civics can lobby local councillors to pass a by-law that says everyone should be given access to electricity
• Organisations can lobby members of parliamentary standing committees, cabinet ministers and heads of government departments to influence them in policy and law-making

The two main categories of decision-makers and role-players that you can target are people who support your cause and people who oppose you.

TIMING OF LOBBYING (CAMPAIGNS AND PETITIONS)

Make sure you understand where, when and by whom a decision will be made. Find out what rights you have in terms of public participation.

BUILDING GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH DECISION-MAKERS AND KEY ROLE-PLAYERS

One of the most important parts of lobbying is building relationships with people that you are planning to engage, in other words, decision-makers and key role-players.

The stronger the ties of trust, mutual support and credibility between you and the person you are lobbying, the more effective your action will be.

These are some guidelines for building good relationships with key role-players:

• Provide useful, accurate, context-specific and truthful information:
• It is important for you and your organisation/network to understand and identify issues of protocol and to raise issues with the appropriate office first. For example, if there is a problem at a clinic, first raise this with the head of the clinic, then the area manager, then the provincial or district authority and finally with the MEC for Health, rather than the other way around. When making a submission to the municipal council, provincial legislature or parliament, it is protocol to take the issue to the relevant decision-making body to consider, rather than going to the media first.
• It is important to identify the group/constituency you represent and to have affected persons, community representatives participate where possible in the submission/presentation
• Recognise what the person you are lobbying has done to benefit the community, so start with a positive and encouraging comment
• Offer to help with issues that they care about (so long as it doesn’t conflict with your own interests), for example, helping to spread information
• Establish ways to work together in the future. Promote win-win solutions where the people you represent as well as the decision-makers gain something positive
• Keep in regular contact and don’t be impatient if nothing happens immediately
• Follow up in writing with those you made a petition/submission to, thank them for their consideration, repeat what you have requested/called for and ask, if needed, when you can meet again
• Keep the community or interest groups informed of latest developments
• Ensure that they own the lobbying strategy and can sustain it
• Keep the media informed about any changes or developments that may affect the issue

EXAMPLE

You want your municipality to test the drinking water of your community.

You believe a local factory has been pumping their waste into the water and it has been making people sick. You will have more chance of someone co-operating with you if you provide them with accurate information, for example, by showing them a record of the illnesses in the last month in the affected area (get these from a clinic or hospital) or providing evidence of the company dumping waste in the water.

TYPES OF LOBBYING

There are many different ways of lobbying, campaigning and petitioning. The different lobbying activities around an issue must be coordinated to make sure they have the greatest impact. It is important that strategic thinking precedes your action.

These strategies can broadly be categorised into 2 groups:

• Inside lobbying
• Outside lobbying

INSIDE LOBBYING

Inside lobbying includes a mix of the following:

• Holding meetings with decision-makers, such as local council representatives and members of parliament for your area
• Providing information to role-players, committees and government officials
• Making submissions to committee meetings/public hearings
• Attending hearings where policy is discussed
• Negotiating with decision-makers and other lobby groups
• Writing formal letters stating your position
• Submitting petitions to relevant committees
• Having discussions with people in informal situations, for example, before or after meetings, during social occasions

OUTSIDE LOBBYING

If inside lobbying is not effective, you should mobilise more support for your issue through outside lobbying for example:

• Speaking to the media, holding news conferences, visiting news editors, helping reporters with stories
• Building alliances with other organisations
• Public letter-writing campaigns
• Public campaigns such as rallies and demonstrations

METHODS OF LOBBYING

The following is a summary of methods you can use for lobbying:

SOCIAL MEDIA – Even before you engage in lobbying it is critical to mobilise support for your position or issue. With modern technology, support can happen via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, though it is important to have a local core group engaging with decision-makers.

MEETINGS – Ask if you can have a face-to-face meeting to present your case. Visit the person in their office or invite them to attend a meeting in the community. Always state clearly why the meeting is important and give them an agenda and a list of possible outcomes from the meeting. Remember, to say what is in it for the decision-maker, for example, “This meeting will provide you with the opportunity to make direct contact with more than 100 people from the community and to hear their concerns on the issue”, or “We will publish your response on our Facebook page where we reach 15 000 people from this city.”

WRITE LETTERS – Letters, emails and sms messages are the easiest method to use to lobby but they are not always the most effective. Many people in positions of power have administrative staff who read their mail and sms messages and summarise them for them. It is always advisable to call a meeting with decision-makers, after writing a letter or sending a message.

The different activities around an issue must be coordinated to make sure they have the greatest impact. So, for example, civil society organisations worked together on the Right to Know Campaign from 2011 to 2014 to raise concerns about the Protection of Information Bill. They used inside and outside lobbying, campaigning and petitioning, to delay the passing of this bill. Their work helped to improve the law and address strong concerns from various civil society organisations and the media.

ASK FOR AN ON-SITE INSPECTION OR SURPRISE VISIT – Invite decision-makers to come and make on-site inspections if appropriate. For example, get the person to come and look at the condition of a school. Committees of parliament have scheduled site visits that can be used to arrange engagements with affected communities or organisations.

Elected officials and municipal officials are the closest to people. Visits and meetings can be arranged more easily with this sphere of government. For example, invite an official or councillor to explain the budget to a ward committee or organised group in your area.

INFORMAL TALKS – Talk informally to committee members and decision-makers during tea breaks, etc. Introduce yourself and share your opinions.

PRIVATE MEETINGS – Organise meetings with national and provincial ministers, mayors and their advisors, and local councillors to explain your position.

PUBLIC MEETINGS – Attend and observe parliamentary committee debates/local council meetings.

PETITIONS – Petitions can be used to show how much popular support your issue has. You can use a petition to get as many signatures as possible from people in the community or you can get a smaller number of key individuals or organisations to sign a petition to support your submission.

PUBLIC HEARINGS – When a bill is tabled in parliament, public hearings are often held where the public can make their submissions to the parliamentary committee dealing with the issue. This is a key moment to get the policy or law changed.

PHONE CALLS, SMS’s, FAXES & EMAILS – Get as many people as possible to telephone the decision-maker. Also use SMS, faxes and email, if possible. Try and contact influential and well-known people by telephone. If you cannot speak to the decision-maker, leave a clear message, for example, “We are phoning to object to the council closing the local health clinics”.

USE THE MEDIA – Use radio, newspapers and TV to spread the word and get publicity for your story. It always helps to make individual contact with a reporter who is prepared to follow the issue through.

MAKE SUBMISSIONS – If formal submissions to committees are unsuccessful, you can also make the submission to an influential member, such as a parliamentary member or a member of a local council committee. You can make a submission to draw attention to an issue or to try and influence the policy and law-making process.

USE THE LEGAL SYSTEM – Take a case to court or to one of the human rights commissions set up under the Constitution to investigate claims of human rights abuses. This is usually the last resort, when all avenues of lobbying have failed, where there has been a failure to address an issue for a long period, or where drastic intervention is needed. This is called public interest litigation.
(See Example of Lobbying)

EXAMPLE

This example shows the lobbying role played by an NGO or civil society network during the process of amending The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act.

February 2007: Women’s health activists come together and develop a draft abortion policy proposal which is submitted to the Department of Health and the ad hoc Select Committee on Abortion

August 2007:

• NGOs mobilise the media and make their own submissions to the public hearings
• NGOs mobilise public opinion by running community workshops on abortion reform.
• NGOs form an alliance

March 2008: The alliance of NGOs lobbies parliament through the distribution of pamphlets to parliamentarians and decision-makers and gives evidence to parliament in favour of abortion reform.

May 2008: Alliance collects data from focus groups to assess community opinion on The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. Research helps in providing improved abortion access for women.

July 2008: Parliamentary hearing on implementation of the Act; Alliance mobilises support from other organisations to give input for the hearing

GUIDELINES TO EFFECTIVE LOBBYING

ENGAGE & INTERVENE EARLY– It is usually better to intervene as early as possible in the process of developing policy and laws. By the time an issue is being debated in parliament, within a municipal council or being finalised in a government department, it is hard to get it changed significantly.

For this reason, it is important for your organisation to regularly check invitations to public hearings in newspapers, and in the media. There are dedicated websites and organisations that alert one to these developments. Examples include the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG). At a local level, it is important to check local papers as regularly as possible.

RESEARCH OR DATA COLLECTION – When government publishes a draft strategy, policy paper, draft regulations or any form of discussion document, you should research the issue properly to be clear about it, and where necessary, collect evidence.

IDENTIFY DECISION-MAKERS – Analyse who has the power to make decisions on your issue and target your strategies in a very focused way at specific decision-makers. Remember not everyone will agree with your position. Think how the role-player can benefit from agreeing with you and include this in your arguments.

Realise that your target audience may respond in three ways:

• People who support your position
• People who neither support your position nor oppose it and who can therefore be persuaded to support you (those who ‘sit on the fence’, or are undecided)
• People who are against you

For your cause/issue to be heard, every effort needs to be made to ensure that decision-makers thoroughly discuss your concerns and do not simply see you as an opponent.

Those who support your cause all must agree on the same way forward so that you do not confuse decision-makers. This requires time, patience and lots of communication.

BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR AGENDA AND GOALS – Only use advocacy and lobbying that will address issues that have jointly been identified as core matters to improve the quality of life of the community or interests of the group. Ensure that your arguments are tight and clear, and where possible, provide evidence to support your case.

Be clear about your issue and plan your own alternative or compromise position. Make sure you have thought through all the options. Know what it is that you want. For example, do you want a parliamentary committee to investigate why a government department has not done a certain job, are you asking for a law to be amended or a by-law or regulation to be scrapped?

This will form the basis of your submission to government, your media campaign, your representations to individual ministers or government officials and your networking with other organisations. It is important to –

• Know your issue (don’t confuse by raising too many issues)
• Know your position
• Decide what you want to get out of the visit, for example, a commitment to vote for your issue, to provide information only
• Keep it simple
• Make recommendations to solve the situation, rather than only describe the challenge or problem at length
• If it is a group visit, decide who will start the discussion and put your agenda on the table
• Seek endorsements from networks or organisations that support your position and or submission, and bring people from the affected community to also speak
• Only after engaging with the decision-makers, share the entire submission with the media

PROPOSE SOLUTIONS – Propose to committee members or government officials a solution that can work. Avoid threats or aggressive language.

PREPARE FOR RESISTANCE & OPPOSITION – Analyse the opposition’s position (to your issue) and develop counter-arguments. Often arguments of affordability and resources are used to counter your submission. Make sure you have sufficient evidence to motivate why additional resources are required to meet your request/demands.

If additional resources are required, or amendments to existing legislation are proposed, try to get professional advice on legal and cost issues.

LISTEN WELL – When making your submission:

• Look for opportunities to provide good information
• Know your issue but don’t feel you have to have all the answers. Admit when you do not know something.
• Ask questions to get a better understanding.
• Share the opinions and concerns of other people in your community.
• Find out how much time you have been allocated for your submission or presentation – and aim to complete it in a shorter time. Often programmes run late, or sudden changes are introduced.
• Take enough copies of your presentation for everyone present.
• Establish who will be presenting to the committee/decision-makers before or after you, if your submission is part of public hearings.
• Make sure beforehand that the time, venue and date have not changed.
• Always assess afterward what worked well, what may require more work and what your future strategies are.

NEVER USE BLACKMAIL – Using blackmail, gifts or bribery to persuade someone to take a certain action is corruption and unethical behaviour, not lobbying.

DON’T BE AGGRESSIVE – Don’t be argumentative or confrontational and don’t get involved in mud-slinging. Be open to counter-arguments, but don’t get stuck on them. Attack with correct facts but avoid personal attacks or insulting slogans. Treat everyone with respect.

BUILD, DON’T DAMAGE WORKING RELATIONSHIPS – If the person has supported you in the past then acknowledge them and your appreciation of their support. If they haven’t supported you in the past, they may well do so in the future so don’t turn them into a permanent enemy. Your response might stop them from becoming active opponents.

GET COMMITMENT AND SUPPORT – Try and get a commitment from the person, for example, a written declaration or a public statement, if it is within their powers to do so. If you are unable to get a commitment and the conversation isn’t going anywhere, thank the person and say that you would like to continue the discussion at another time.

FOLLOW-UP – After the meeting, if appropriate, send a thank-you note to all in attendance, or to the chairperson of the committee. If commitments were made in the meeting, repeat your understanding of them. If staff members were present, thank and write to the administration too.

LOBBY ALL TARGET GROUPS/ RELEVANT AUTHORITIES – Don’t only lobby one department or entity on an issue. Identify the target role-players supporters, allies, and opponents and include all of them. For example, an environmental health matter may require engagement with the provincial health department, the municipal environment health department and the agency responsible for refuse collection, as a start. You should also lobby all political groups, not just the majority party.

CONSOLIDATE & BUILD YOUR LOBBY GROUP – Analyse which individuals and organisations can influence the decision-makers and/or role-players and try to mobilise them to support your issue. Never lobby alone. People with political power are usually more sensitive to lobbying action which represents their voters.

BRIEF ALL ROLE-PLAYERS – Keep other stakeholders informed about what is happening and the outcome of any lobbying action. Use meetings, regular emails, newsletters, SMS’s, WhatsApp, phone calls and other social media networks.