Strategy Planning Lessons

A Senegal-based NGO, The Association for the Advancement of Senegalese Women, chose a people-powered answer to a critical strategy question early in their history. As a result, the organization's programs have changed both societal institutions and cultural attitudes, anchoring their advocacy in the region and bringing about more widespread and long-lasting reforms.

The Association for the Advancement of Senegalese Women (APROFES) was a Senegalese NGO, a 12-person operation created and staffed by women who came from the communities the organization served. Founded in 1991 to address economic and social justice issues of women in the Kaolak region, APROFES quickly became an established organization with a good reputation and budding connections with communities, other NGOs, and urban government officials. The staff of APROFES had determined that the organization would not just provide services, but would work for systemic changes that would benefit women.

In 1992, an event took place that was to result in a new strategic direction for APROFES. Women in one of APROFES's community programs appealed to the organization because a young woman in their village had just been murdered by her husband. APROFES was faced with a decision: should it broaden its advocacy strategy in response to this need, and if so, what would the most strategic response be?

APROFES chose to take its direction from the women with whom it was working and respond to the murder. Further, APROFES chose a people-centered response, and organized a march in protest of the murder, first in the Kaolak area, and then in the capital city of Dakar.

This was the first time in Senegal that there had been a march to protest violence against women. This rallying of public opinion was pointed out by allies and officials in Senagal as a turning point in the campaign for women's rights in the country. According to Oulimata Gaye, coordinator of the legal program for CIJ/RADI in Dakar, ” 'APROFES was the first organization to break the silence, to dare to speak out publicly. They got women to march….They put the idea that conjugal violence is not acceptable on the national agenda. It opened up a whole new area for the women's movement.' ” (Advocacy for Social Justice, p. 133)

The staff of APROFES were change-makers, and the women who came to them to ask them to intervene were change-makers too. In APROFES' strategic response, everyone who marched in protest of the murder also became a change-maker.

Beginning with this people-centered advocacy response, the organization began to mobilize support, education, and resources for legal trials that sought to punish violence against women, framing such violence as a violation of women's human rights. As the organization worked to support similar legal cases over the following years, the power of public opinion came to be one of the bulwarks of its strategy. In time, institutions such as the media and law enforcement began to change their responses to domestic violence.

Individual people in rural communities also began to change their actions. Some years after the first case, when a man in Gapakh village was accused of killing his wife, her friends took action. They came to APROFES because they felt they themselves must act, not merely to respond to the death of their friend, but also to address a rights violation. When the accused man fled, other members of his community took action, by convincing him to turn himself in.

When listing its “lessons learned” about effective advocacy, one lesson APROFES cited was “the importance of mobilizing people. Without broad popular mobilization, efforts by women's groups to influence government officials are much more difficult in Senegal.” (Advocacy for Social Justice, p. 129) Because of the people-centered aspects of its strategy, APROFES's advocacy was anchored in the community, where it could have more widespread and long-lasting effects.

Information on this page came from Advocacy for Social Justice: A Global Action and Reflection Guide, now available in English and Spanish from Kumarian Press.