A non-governmental organization (NGO) or organisation non-gouvernemental (ONG) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include clubs and associations that provide services to their members and others. NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from international and intergovernmental organizations (IOs) in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments.
Advocacy is an activity by an individual or group that aims to influence decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to influence public policy, laws and budgets by using facts, their relationships, the media, and messaging to educate government officials and the public. Advocacy can include many activities that a person or organization undertakes, including media campaigns, public speaking, commissioning and publishing research. Lobbying is a form of advocacy where a direct approach is made to legislators on a specific issue or specific piece of legislation. Research has started to address how advocacy groups in the United States and Canada are using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.
Glen Ronald Murray is a Canadian politician and urban issues advocate who served as the 41st Mayor of Winnipeg, Manitoba from 1998 to 2004, and was the first openly gay mayor of a large North American city. He subsequently moved to Toronto, Ontario, and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as a Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Toronto Centre in 2010, serving until 2017.
John Russell Baird is a Canadian retired politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2011 to 2015 in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He had been a member of the federal cabinet, in various positions, since 2006. Previously he was a provincial cabinet minister in Ontario during the governments of Premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves. Baird resigned from Harper's cabinet on February 3, 2015, and as a Member of Parliament on March 16, 2015.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), with its head office in Calgary, Alberta, is a lobby group that represents the upstream Canadian oil and natural gas industry. CAPP's members produce "90% of Canada's natural gas and crude oil" and "are an important part of a national industry with revenues of about $100 billion-a-year ."
The environmental movement in South Africa traces its history from the early beginnings of conservation, to the rise of radicalism and activism amongst local ecologists. Before the Chernobyl disaster and the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were very few green activist groups in the country. Koeberg Alert and the Dolphin Action and Protection Group are probably two of the oldest post-conservation groups.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, formerly called the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, is an umbrella group of American civil rights interest groups.
A civil society campaign is one that is intended to mobilize public support and use democratic tools such as lobbying in order to instigate social change. Civil society campaigns can seek local, national or international objectives. They can be run by dedicated single-issue groups such as Baby Milk Action, or by professional non-governmental organisations (NGOs), such as the World Development Movement, who may have several campaigns running at any one time. Larger coalition campaigns such as 2005's Make Poverty History may involve a combination of NGOs.
Ceasefire Canada (Ceasefire.ca) was founded in 2003 by Steven Staples and Peter Coombes to prevent Canada from joining the U.S Ballistic Missile Defense program. Staples and Coombes were inspired by the success of web-based campaigns such as Moveon.org. Ceasefire.com was intended to be a web-based tool for citizen action on Canadian government policy. In 2007 Ceasefire.ca moved to the Rideau Institute under the direction of Steven Staples. Over the years it has been involved in a number of campaigns. It was involved in the campaign against the George W. Bush's Star Wars program, it helped push many Canadian politicians to oppose the war in Afghanistan, allowed US war resisters to stay in Canada, called for the ban on deadly cluster bombs, lobbied for the abolishment of nuclear weapons, and worked to prevent the weaponization of space. From its humble beginnings Ceasefire.ca has grown to a membership of 15,000 subscribers who receive online bulletins and take part in online letter writing campaigns. Also, over 1000 have become donors and help fund the organization's campaign work and research activities.
The Rideau Institute is a non-profit independent research and advocacy group based in Ottawa. It focuses on foreign policy and defence policy issues.
Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) is an ecumenical, non-profit organization that promotes justice in Canadian public policy through research and analysis focused on poverty reduction, ecological justice, and refugee rights.
Advocacy groups, also known as interest groups, special interest groups, lobbying groups, pressure groups, or public associations use various forms of advocacy and/or lobbying in order to influence public opinion and ultimately public policy. They play an important role in the development of political and social systems.
The Halifax Initiative is a coalition of Canadian non-governmental organizations for public interest work and education on international financial institutions. Canadian non-governmental organizations formed the Halifax Initiative in December 1994 to ensure that demands for fundamental reform of the international financial institutions would be high on the agenda of the upcoming June 1995 Group of 7 meeting in Halifax. The Halifax Initiative is a coalition of development, environment, faith-based, human rights and labour groups.
Advocacy evaluation, also called public policy advocacy design, monitoring, and evaluation, evaluates the progress or outcomes of advocacy, such as changes in public policy.
The South Asia Partnership Pakistan (SAP-PK) is a registered with the Government of Pakistan and functions under the Societies Registration Act 1860. non-governmental organization working in Pakistan.
The nature of the activities of advocacy groups is highly dependent on the scope and extent on group aims and objectives. Motives for advocacy group action may be based on a shared political, religious, moral, health or commercial position. Groups use varied methods to try to achieve their aims including lobbying, media campaigns, publicity stunts, polls, research, and policy briefings. Some groups are supported or backed by powerful business or political interests and exert considerable influence on the political process, while others have few or no such resources.
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) is a Canadian non-governmental organization dedicated to pursuing justice through the protection and promotion of human rights. The RWCHR's name and mission is inspired by Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian legacy.
