ABSTRACT

From the early 1990s, advocacy increased in importance for Australian NGOs. As outlined in the preceding chapter, during this time many existing NGOs began advocacy and many new NGOs were established with advocacy either as part of their mandate or as their sole raison d’être. This chapter explores these developments, presenting some aspects of research, conducted between 2000 and 2003, into the advocacy work of Australian NGOs. In particular, it presents case studies of six NGOs and is based on interviews with past and present staff from the selected NGOs, personnel from the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) and representatives of AusAID, and an exploration of existing published documents. For five of the six case study NGOs, advocacy was either initiated or significantly scaled up in the 1990s.