Advocacy Rewind 2013 Advocacy Milestones 2013 JAN EWB

Advocacy Rewind: 2013

Advocacy Milestones 2013 JAN EWB Conference 2013 FEB-APRIL MARCH Canada merges the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) & Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) Advocacy Community pilots newsletter & Learning Partnership EWB Advocacy Strategy consultations MAY Advocacy Strategy (2013 -15) Released! JUNE Day of Action on Parliament Hill Advocacy Distributed Team Retreat JULY EWB joins the Publish What You Pay Canada coalition SEPT EWB Advocate Bootcamp OCT 13 -20 #fixaid Campaign spike NOV/DEC TRACE Campaign launch

In May, EWB’s Advocacy Strategy (2013 -15) was released, setting out two focus areas that we began to take action on immediately. UP NEXT: 1. What we set out to do—and did—in both focus areas a. Reforming Canada’s Development Assistance b. Strengthening Canadian Leadership Towards Responsible Mining in Africa 2. Successes & Failures 3. Looking to 2014!

REFORMING CANADA’S DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE 2013 GOALS In the wake of the CIDA-DFAIT merger, mobilize a critical mass of Canadians asking the Government of Canada to make its commitment to “put development on equal footing with trade & diplomacy” a reality by establishing: 1. 2. 3. A clear vision for what Canada aims to achieve with our international development initiatives. A portfolio to encourage (and fund) more innovative solutions to development challenges. A sustained aid budget to invest in achieving those goals. KEY ACTIONS • Media outreach in response to CIDADFAIT merger • Day of Action on Parliament Hill saw 20+ EWBers met with 40 MPs • Launched http: //aidreform. ewb. ca/ and #fixaid • EWB chapters hosted member learning sessions • Took advantage of political machinery by phoning 20 key MP offices en masse • Partnered with Run to End Poverty to increase visibility

REFORMING CANADA’S DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE KEY OUTCOMES • Published an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen , in response to the Government of Canada’s decision to merge CIDA and DFAIT. • 20+ EWBers met with 40 MPs during the Day of Action on Parliament Hill. • #fixaid was featured in the Globe & Mail as part of a October 9 story asking Canadians: "What's the most important issue for Parliament to tackle this session? “. • 60+ EWBers phoned key MP offices to ask that Canada follow through on its commitment to make aid more effective. • 11 Chapters held Member Learning events to discuss how Canada can put development on “equal footing” with trade and diplomacy. • Reached ~31, 000 unique followers via Twitter. NEXT STEPS Major nation-wide spike in action: January/February 2014 STAY TUNED!!

STRENGTHENING CANADIAN LEADERSHIP TOWARDS RESPONSIBLE MINING IN AFRICA 2013 GOALS • To demonstrate that Canadians want Canada (and provinces in particular) to take the lead in making global mining, oil and gas sectors to be more transparent and responsible. • To begin to build relationships and cultivate greater understanding of this issue among provincial politicians, particularly in Publish What You Pay Canada’s 4 target provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec) KEY ACTIONS • Joined the Publish What You Pay Canada coalition • Kicked off the TRACE Campaign for Transparent and Accountable Mining. • Launched responsiblemining. ewb. ca and #traceit. • Curated blog series including guest posts from EWBers and partners (including PWYP Canada, ONE and Revenue Watch Institute). • Participated in Natural Resources Canada and Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development consultations on the extractive sector. • EWB chapters hosted 20 member learning sessions. • EWBers met with provincial politicians in 4 target provinces • Led national social media campaign, to demonstrate mass support for revenue transparency to key provincial decisionmakers.

STRENGTHENING CANADIAN LEADERSHIP TOWARDS RESPONSIBLE MINING IN AFRICA KEY OUTCOMES • Met with 20 provincial politicians across Canada. • 20 EWB Chapters hosted learning workshops to help our members and the public get up-to-speed on why a transparent extractive sector is important. • 50+ visible commitments from young Canadians on Vine, Twitter, and Facebook, asking key provincial decision-makers to make the mining, oil and gas sector more transparent. • Reached ~768, 000 unique followers via Twitter. • Blog post featured on ONE Campaign website. NEXT STEPS Continued focused relationship-building with key politicians in 4 target provinces. STAY TUNED!

2013 SUCCESSES 2013 FAILURES We maintained our powerful voice for aid reform. We did well at using the CIDA-DFAIT merger as an opportunity to leverage our relationships with MPs and reinforce the message that Canada’s approach to foreign aid must improve. We didn’t give the EWB Community enough notice. Particularly with the #fixaid campaign spike, we heard loud and clear that EWB chapters need significantly more notice to give campaigns their all. We incorporated this learning right away and will keep doing so. TRACE launched on a very strong note. The EWB community was visibly excited about this campaign. We delivered on our first-ever outreach to provincial politicians. Our policy ask was received well by most politicians we met with and we identified potential political champions in 3/4 target provinces. We ran into significant technical challenges with the Advocacy Bootcamp. Our first fullyonline Bootcamp, this pilot was exciting and worthwhile, but not without it’s snags. We’ll draw on this experience as we design more training opportunities to pilot next year. The Advocacy Distributed Team knocked it out of the park. This core team of volunteers was the foundation of everything from Bootcamp design, to executing strongly on campaigns, to ongoing Advocacy Rep recruitment and support, to reorganizing our resource library. We grew our community of Advocacy Reps. . . and they went above and beyond. We now have Reps at 26/32 chapters. Who hosted 30+ member learning events in 4 months. Yeah. That happened. We took huge leaps in knowledge management, communications and monitoring & evaluation (M&E). We launched and trained our team in the use of a MP relationship tracking system. We revived our e-mailing list with a monthly advocacy newsletter. We incorporated thorough M&E into both campaign spikes. We need to invest more in establishing a presence in mass media. Major #fixaid press release was not picked up by any media, though there was some interest in the general story of aid reform. No traditional media outlets picked up on TRACE. We need to go further when it comes to M&E. Right now, we’re gathering info mostly about outputs (# attendees at workshops, # media hits). While it is (and always will be) challenging to draw direct cause-effect connections (e. g. , what role, if any, did #fixaid have in the mention of “effective, accountable, aid” in the Throne Speech? ) we should still push boundaries in terms of how the success of our advocacy work is evaluated. However, this requires significant time and expertise, and it’s unclear if we’ll have this in 2014.

Looking to 2014! Conference 2014 (January 10 -12, Toronto) • (Friday afternoon) Casual meet & greet to get many members of our advocacy team in the same place and the same time! Put faces to names and have fun. • Advocacy Space (Sunday morning) Bringing our cross-Canada advocacy team together again, this time in a more structured space aimed to build skills, debate issues, ask questions and prepare for 2014 campaign season! • Policy Forum on Global Development (Thursday, invite only) Closed-door forum bringing policymakers and practitioners together to discuss the need for (and barriers to) innovation in international development, designed in conjunction with the Agriculture Value Chain, Water & Sanitation and Agricultural Extension ventures. Jan 13 th-24 th Campaign Spike: “protect our aid budget” Ongoing strategic meetings in TRACE target provinces, supported by TRACE Provincial leads, with the goal of having one province adopt a commitment to mandatory disclosure this year.