Advocating against extremism

As part of its new project, ‘Understanding and combating extremism in Serbia’, TransConflict Serbia organized a training on advocacy campaign development, designed to strengthen responses to instances of extremism.

The goal of the training programme is to help the participants understand and utilize a strategic approach to advocacy campaign development and management, thereby improving the quality of advocacy responses to instances of extremism; whether they be, for example, cases of violence or racism in sport, hate speech directed towards ethnic minorities or instances of political extremism.

The first session covered key topics related to advocacy campaign development – including an introduction to the concept of advocacy; differentiating between goals, strategies and tactics; monitoring and evaluation, and stakeholder management. The training programme is delivered by Srećko Šekeljić, an advocacy consultant and a certified trainer with extensive experience working with international organizations, state institutions, and NGOs in the fields of civil society development and advocacy campaign management.

Srećko Šekeljić

In the coming months, the participants – from political parties, civil society and the media, respectively – will take part in training modules on advocacy in the media (focusing on key communication channels, message development, on-line media and traditional media) and advocacy in institutions (exploring the nature, models, and sources of political power; methods of citizen’s mobilization and participation; exerting public pressure; and coalition building and negotiation).

The final training will be dedicated to demonstrating the participants’ command of key elements of advocacy campaigning through practical groups exercise – including negotiating an advocacy platform; outlining a low-budget advocacy campaign; defining key strategies and tactics; developing  a communication strategy; and evaluating the campaign. As a final exercise, the participants will be guided through the process of drafting a joint low-budget advocacy platform on an issue related to violence reduction.

The project, ‘Understanding and combating extremism in Serbia’, is designed to improve understanding about – and formulate responses to – extremism in Serbia by engaging representatives of parties from across the political spectrum, civil society organizations, academics and the media.

For further information about ‘Understanding and combating extremism in Serbia’ – including information on how to participate – then please write to TransConflict by clicking here.

‘Understanding and combating extremism in Serbia’ has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.