By Margit van Wessel, Wenny Ho, Edwige Marty and Peter Tamas

There are many manuals about advocacy. Most of these center on general principles. In the context of development, many policy documents and reports about advocacy are also available. Most of these provide broad and general discussions about programs and their achievements. Usually, little light is shed on the actual nature of the advocacy work. In this book, we seek to do just that. Advocates working on improving relations between the government and society and on social cohesion in the South Sudan, Nigeria, Burundi, Central African Republic and Afghanistan, tell stories about some of their achievements and the strategizing involved. While the countries are diverse, they are commonly called ‘fragile’, and organizations strategize and carry out their work, closely engaging with the conditions and possibilities of their contexts. With these stories, their capacities, strategies and achievements become more visible and understandable.