Capacity building in the skills and practices of advocacy is one of the major instruments of strengthening grassroots activism, something so crucial for deepening democracy at local level and facilitating access to justice for the most marginalized and excluded communities. Capacity building is undertaken for grassroots activists and human rights defenders, with a focus on women activists. Under this portfolio, every year, national/regional level trainings are organized. At times, the trainings are jointly facilitated by international facilitators and local trainers. The training workshops are designed to draw on advocacy and lobby experience that enable participants to reflect on and deepen their understanding of the connections between their organization, governance structure and larger civil society.
The Centre also puts together regular information service to provide Parliamentary updates and other policy developments to Partner/client organizations. The information revolves around various bills to be passed by the Parliament/ State assemblies, dissemination of gazette notification of various bills approved by the President and Governors at the grassroots level to the CSOs, promotion of exchange of information between MPs/legislators and NGOs, leading to a better dialogue among the CSOs and elected representatives towards creation of common understanding on various public interest issues.
Another important action that IPAC undertakes to strengthen grassroots activists and human rights defenders is to facilitate their access to decision makers, in particular the elected representatives at the national and state level. To do this in a systematic and lasting manner, IPAC regularly interacts with Members of Parliament, cutting across party affiliations to develop or help clients gain easy access.