Rehmani, M.

Advocacy Approaches to Integrate Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in Conservative Contexts: A Case Study of Aahung's Advocacy Model in Pakistan
Rehmani, M., Tajuddin, S., Ijaz, A., Hadi, S.

This paper aims to present the advocacy approaches as a best practice model implemented by Aahung - an NGO, to institutionalize Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) into mainstream curricula in conservative contexts such as Pakistan.

Context: As the education system in Pakistan is decentralized at provincial levels, therefore Aahung's advocacy interventions focus on collaborating with Provincial Education Departments. In the case of Sindh province, Aahung worked in collaboration with the Sindh School Education and Literacy department (SELD), in order to strategically integrate its CSE curriculum into the Sindh school curriculum. This collaboration resulted in the development of an integrated CSE framework, which identifies potential subjects and chapters where CSE content can be incorporated. This framework, ultimately resulted in the successful integration of Aahung's CSE content into the Sindh secondary school curriculum. Methodology: To begin the process, Aahung developed a review committee in 2010 comprised of members from SELD, teachers, parents and progressive religious scholars to get the content locally approved and endorsed. In 2011, an advocacy power mapping exercise was initiated with all the provincial education departments of Pakistan. This entailed: i) understanding the operations of the education departments and decision making mechanisms, ii) identifying key stakeholders within the system, iii) building and strengthening relationships with key decision makers and stakeholders. Based on this, Aahung scaled up its advocacy efforts in the province of Sindh by conducting sensitization sessions with key decision makers on the importance of CSE integration. These sessions led to the endorsement of Aahung's advocacy strategy and an MOU was signed between Aahung and SELD to lead the process of CSE integration. The signing of the MOU was accompanied by the establishment of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to oversee the process of integration. The committee comprised of the heads of all sub-departments of Education and relevant subject specialists. TAC meetings were carried out with the members to review the existing provincial curriculum and develop a framework which highlights the potential subjects where Aahung's content can be incorporated.

Integration of CSE into the mainstream curricula in conservative contexts is a challenge. Public Health Practitioners in such context may face significant amount of challenge and delays while advocating for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. Hence, certain advocacy strategies such as power mapping, public private partnership, sensitization sessions with policy makers can facilitate the practitioners to streamline their advocacy process.

The following implications and lessons learned are crucial for organizations or public health practitioners working on CSE in challenging contexts:

• The advocacy power mapping exercise helps in identifying the key players within the system and establishing and strengthening relationships with them. This, in turn, plays a crucial role in understanding and overcoming local challenges and resistance.

• Intra-department connectivity and networking is vital in identifying stakeholders of similar interest which could help in scaling up the intervention.

• Clear outlining of the roles and responsibilities of each partner and frequent meetings with key government stakeholders plays a crucial role in ensuring accountability and ownership on part of all the stakeholders.

• It is important to be flexible while developing public private-partnerships for such sensitive issues. This creates an environment where constructive negotiations become possible.

• Appropriate integration of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) mechanisms within the intervention design is extremely important for the assessment of the overall effectiveness of the project. Advocacy is usually a slow process but in Aahung's case it was accelerated. This highlighted that M&E mechanisms need to be in place from the inception of the process.