You might be new to human rights advocacy. Or you may be a seasoned human rights defender. As you explore our method, we hope you will take away something new.
Click below to explore each step of the methodology.
Strategic Advocacy Planning
The New Tactics Strategic Effectiveness Method gives everyone an opportunity to participate in strategic advocacy planning. There is nothing mysterious about strategy. But it is often difficult to think strategically. Strategy is not a single decision. It is a coming together of many decisions:
- selection of key goals
- identifying the resources needed
- understanding allies and opponents
- deciding which tactics to use and when.
Our method of strategy development emerged from more than twenty years of working with human rights defenders. New Tactics and members of our community continue to use and adapt the method. Our method can help you develop effective strategies for your human rights work. We hope our method will add something new to your toolbox.
Inspired by the teachings of Sun Tzu
Two important messages from Sun Tzu
- Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
- Planning without action is futile. Action without planning can be fatal.
New Tactics based the Strategic Effectiveness Method on the philosophy and teaching of Sun Tzu. He lived over 2,000 years ago in China. According to Sun Tzu, good strategy requires three sources of knowledge:
- Know Yourself – goals, resources, strengths and limits, allies
- Know Your Opponent – goals, resources, tactics, strengths and weaknesses, allies
- Know the Terrain – the human relationships within the context of social, political, cultural institutions and structures or “where the ‘battle’ will be fought”.
The 5-Step Method
Each of the 5-steps in our method is an important part of building your strategy. You will find in each step:
- An overview of the step
- Objectives to help focus your approach to the step
- Tips for applying the step
Begin your journey of change now!
Use our method to create effective strategies and innovative tactics for your human rights work. View these tips before starting your journey of change.
