Advocacy entails promoting, recommending and encouraging others, in particular decision-makers, to support a cause, policy, a way of doing something, or a change.

CSA particularly engages in advocacy towards the improvement of reproductive health outcomes especially for adolescents and young people at a National, regional, and global space.

CSA focuses its advocacy on policymakers and overall decision-makers at all levels who have the power to make the changes we want to see in Reproductive Health. Our advocacy is usually based on evidence drawn from previous programme experiences and research using a range of different advocacy methods to create a convincing case for change.

CSA understands that International instruments such as commitments made by different countries play a critical role in influencing national policies and programming. Through it’s years of existence, CSA has participated actively in National, regional and international advocacy processes by ensuring that the voices and the will of young people and other underserved communities are well represented in spaces where. At the Global and regional space CSA has engaged in different processes such as; International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), Convention on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, Global Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Advocacy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit, the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) review, Beijing +25 process, The East and Southern Africa commitments on CSE review, the East Africa Community SRHR Bill etc.

                     At the National level, CSA’s advocacy efforts aim at creating an enabling policy and legislative environment for the realization of rights to access information and services by young people across the country. In 2003, CSA spearheaded the development of the first-ever Adolescent Reproductive Health and Development (ARHD 2003) Policy and later provided technical support in the review of the National Adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health (ASRH) 2015 Policy.

National And County Agenda

CSA continues to implement interventions that propose the development of clear policy framework for translating CSE policies and commitments into practice in Kenya through; the establishment of joint coordination mechanism for CSE implementation at national level, development of common position on CSE among stakeholders including religious entities and development of joint monitoring and evaluation framework for CSE implementation in schools.

The implementation of the current Kenya constitution (2010) saw the devolvement of critical government functions from national to counties, including health. In view of the opportunity presented by the constitution in addressing health challenges by county-specific interventions, CSA continues to build the capacity of youth champions in different counties to meaningfully drive county-level advocacy especially in lobbying for increased resource allocation for Adolescents and Youth Sexual Reproductive Health including Family Planning.

Some of the advocacy efforts led by CSA at County Level include;

AYSRH Implementation

Development of Nairobi Metropolitan Service AYSRH Implementation Framework 2020-2023.

Strengthening TWGs

Strengthening of the National and County level Technical Working Groups (TWG) on adolescent sexual reproductive health (ASRH and Family Planning (FP) in Busia, Kajiado, Kwale, Kilifi, Mombasa

FGM Policy

Development of the Kajiado Eradication of FGM Policy.

Strengthening  Capacity

Strengthened capacities of partners including community-based organizations (CBOs) to effectively engage in budget policy review/making processes in various counties.

Oversight Committee

Establishment of the oversight committee on adolescents and youth in 5 counties