to see here that external conditions and changes can provide openings or present barriers for advocacy programmes. However, although advocates can sometimes influence external factors and create openings, external factors are largely outside of the advocates’ control. Past work on advocacy evaluation has included external factors that can be grouped into four categories:
1. Characteristics of the targets
including their power relevant to the issue, agendas, opposition to the issue and openness to influence
2. Characteristics of the context
surrounding the issue, including the presence and capacity of an organised opposition against or support for the advocacy goal on a particular issue
3. Characteristics of the public
in terms of their support for or opposition to an organisation’s position on an issue, the degree of similarity between the advocacy objectives and societal values or agendas, and the role of mass media and social media
4. Characteristics of the general context
including the socio-political, socioeconomic and sociocultural contexts and the political or legal space open to CSOs
In the evaluation, we found several external factors to be relevant for explaining advocacy successes and failures. First, we can consider the way other actors (targets, other CSOs and other audiences) relate to an advocacy programme. We found that targets’ agendas, positions on issues, power to influence developments around an issue and ways of using power were important factors. Changes around targets, such as personnel turnover within target organisations, power changes among targets and the timing of policy processes, were sometimes decisive for advocacy opportunities. A beneficial example of a change in a target was seen in 2012, when a new World Bank president was nominated and chose climate as one of the key issues for the World Bank. This individual was more supportive of Hivos’ Access to Energy campaign than was his predecessor and shared the Oxfam Confederation’s concern regarding the consequences of large-scale land acquisitions for the poor in developing countries. This turned the target into an ally, to some extent, which likely contributed to some of the achievements of both alliances. Across the evaluated programmes, some aspects of the context came up as important for explaining achievements. Political space for CSOs in specific geographic contexts affected the possibilities for carrying out activities, which, in turn, affected the outcomes achieved. The cultural context where advocacy is conducted sometimes also influenced opportunities to carry out activities, be heard or set up co-operation with others. Institutional openness to civil society participation and influence was also a factor. For example, ACPF worked in a climate of shrinking socio-political and legal space for CSOs to operate at national level. These restrictions had negative consequences for ACPF being able to have their message ‘trickle down’ to the various levels of outreach and to push the message on child rights further than agendas alone. Conditions that changed because of wars and disasters also had an 51