Questions for the advocacy community: Q2 – Ruth Messinger et al

Q2: Is citizen advocacy at its most effective when it generates maximum “noise” on an issue , or do citizen advocates need to attach particular policy prescriptions to the noise they make?

Ruth Messinger, President, American Jewish World Service (AJWS); Ian Schwab, Senior Associate and National Grassroots Organizer at  AJWS; and Leah Kaplan Robins, Senior Writer / Editor at AJWS:

It would be easy to answer this question with an emphatic “It’s all about noise,” or “Noise is worthless without a policy position.” Like all good questions, this one resists easy answers: Neither is always true. The key to effective citizen advocacy is knowing when you need noise, and knowing when you need nuance.

When the genocide in Darfur began, what we needed was noise, and the Save Darfur Coalition stepped up, running huge awareness-raising campaigns. Six years ago, most Americans had never even heard of the small region in western Sudan that had seemingly few implications for our own peace and security. Yet because of a campaign of outrage, organized in part by American Jewish World Service, Darfur garnered significant and sustained attention. George Clooney, Mia Farrow and Joey Cheek visited Darfur in order to expose what was happening there and motivate others to take action. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, citizens pressured debate moderators and flooded ask-the-candidate websites with questions about Darfur. The questions didn’t always demand any particular action, but they were instrumental in putting the candidates on record about Darfur and highlighting Darfur as a serious issue for Americans. As the questions to the candidates and the cries of Never Again reflect, the movement for peace in Darfur has been successful in thrusting a distant conflict into the international limelight. We helped make the crisis in Darfur the central issue as opposed to rallying around a specific set of potentially controversial policy solutions.

Largely as a result of our noise, there is significant support in Congress and the administration for Darfur-related action, funding for what is now the world’s largest humanitarian operation, a special envoy, and a commitment for justice and accountability. But this is not an end. The next challenge is guiding political leaders to a set of concrete steps that they can take to bring peace to the region and restore security to the Darfuri people. In essence, noise established the preconditions necessary for pushing our leaders to work toward a sustainable political solution.

Making this happen isn’t easy. The situation in Darfur is complex and extends beyond the particulars of the genocide itself to encompass competition for natural resources (exacerbated by climate change), the legacy of Colonialism in the Great Lakes region of Africa and the ongoing challenges that the international community faces in reconciling state sovereignty with the responsibility to protect. Many of the most promising policy prescriptions, such as bringing together an international coalition of nations demanding peace, requires behind-the-scenes diplomacy and multi-dimensional strategies that don’t lend themselves to “rally at the barricades” citizen activism.

But as these policy options come on line, and as the Obama Administration and its special envoy, Major-General Scott Gration, begin to negotiate and navigate these options, it will be all the more critical for the advocacy community and the public to continue generating the noisy energy that animates and holds our leaders accountable.