Understanding ILCA’s Advocacy Strategy

At ILCA, all of our advocacy work is defined by our overarching goal: sustainable policy change so that more children survive and thrive through breastfeeding/chestfeeding and so that skilled lactation care is valued globally.

The advocacy strategy was shared with our community by advocacy advisor Michele Griswold at the recent All General Meeting at the ILCA conference in Atlanta, Georgia:

Read on for a summary of key elements of ILCA’s advocacy strategy:

Our overarching goals

At ILCA, all of our advocacy work is defined by our overarching goal: sustainable policy change so that more children survive and thrive through breastfeeding/chestfeeding and skilled lactation care is valued globally.

Of course, ILCA’s advocacy strategy is also informed by our vision: World health transformed through breastfeeding and skilled lactation care.

Target areas in breastfeeding and skilled lactation care

This leads to a two-pronged advocacy approach targeting two critical issues: breastfeeding and skilled lactation care.

For the next three to five years, ILCA has identified six target areas in the two areas of breastfeeding and skilled lactation care.

For breastfeeding, ILCA advocates for breastfeeding/chestfeeding families by calling upon governments, regional and local decision makers to:

• Implement BFHI
• Implement the Code
• Family Friendly Policies

For skilled lactation professionals, ILCA advocates for:

• Worldwide recognition of skilled lactation professionals as allied health providers
• Capacity building at the local, regional, and national levels
• Funding to achieve the above

ILCA represents you when it matters most

To help achieve these goals, ILCA has long had representation at the global level to represent you at the global level. [Editor’s note: We will continue to keep you up-to-date on these key meetings via email and social media at #ILCArepresents]

Engagement is key to advocacy success

How will ILCA reach these goals? Michele captured ILCA’s focus on effective organizing through engagement:

“The heart of advocacy work is relationships. Ongoing engagement with you, our members and partners, and key stakeholders is going to be key to achieving our advocacy goals. We as lactation professionals all over the world are linked to one another through the work we do every day in our communities.”