The NGO Advocacy program seeks to build the advocacy capacity of civil society organizations. Through specialized workshops and trainings in public interest advocacy, PILI aims to help NGO-affiliated legal professionals and activists maximize the reach of their work and its impact on the needs of the communities they serve.

The NGO Advocacy Training program complements the strategy for the Legal Education Reform program — in which a relatively small investment of capacity-building resources reaches many individuals to bring about changes in policy and law — and the strategy for the Public Interest Law Fellowship program — in which a relatively large amount of resources isinvested in a small number of individuals who are expected to have a disproportionately great leadership impact through the course of their careers. Through careful selection of particular issues, skills and geographic locations for NGO advocacy training projects, PILI seeks to enhance the ability of a wider range of actors to devote themselves to pursuing the public interest in their countries.

PILI’s training activities include a wide range of workshops, conferences, and publications aimed at promoting public interest litigation and advocacy. Past and current projects have focused on strategic litigation in China, freedom of information campaigns in Serbia, and public advocacy in Azerbaijan. Other trainings have covered such issues as educational desegregation strategies, harm reduction policy, environmental litigation, Internet policy, and freedom of assembly. In addition, PILI focuses on anti-discrimination as a priority issue for advocacy, and has developed a unique online resource for researchers and practitioners — the Database on Anti-Discrimination and Equality Law (DADEL). PILI has been a key partner in the creation of a network of anti-discrimination NGOs in Europe.