THE ADVOCACY NOBODY TALKS ABOUT

23/11/2025

• By Julián Ginzo

Why did I feel it was interesting to interview Philip? He is a global thought leader at the intersection of social innovation, governance, and advocacy. With professional experience spanning business consultancy and nonprofit leadership, he currently leads the Geneva-based Center for Advocacy and Global Growth (CAGG), which partners with think tanks and civil society organizations across the Global South to advance locally driven development and policy solutions. Having lived on five continents and worked across emerging and frontier markets, Philip combines practical expertise in international relations and economics with a deep understanding of civic engagement, institutional change, and capacity-building. His professional trajectory reflects a commitment to fostering sustainable, inclusive systems that empower communities while bridging the gap between innovation and governance.

This interview offers rare insight into how high-impact advocacy works in practice, beyond headlines or simplified success stories. Philip reflects on the complexities of measuring influence, the importance of balancing short-term wins with long-term institutional change, and the lessons learned from failures in diverse contexts. Readers gain a nuanced perspective on global development, the challenges of translating awareness into action, and the ethical responsibility of empowering local voices. Beyond technical frameworks, the conversation reveals Philip’s philosophy on leadership, civil discourse, and the interplay of innovation and governance, making it both intellectually rich and practically relevant for anyone interested in advocacy, policy, and social change.

Here’s our exchange:

Where are you originally from, and what was your childhood like there?

I was born in Pakistan but raised in central California throughout my early adolescent and teenage years. It is also where I attended university, so California feels like a major part of my identity, even though I no longer have family living there. It was a wonderful place to grow up, with plenty of community activities and outdoor adventures amidst California’s diverse natural beauty. I was very active in Boy Scouts and church youth programs, which provided memorable experiences such as multi-day hikes in the Sierra Nevada mountains and kayaking in Monterey Bay. Those organizations also kept me busy with frequent service projects, from organizing blood drives to building park trails. I am grateful for those formative opportunities, as they taught me teamwork and perseverance. I discovered the joy and self-fulfillment that comes from effort rather than solely from recognition.

What was your family dynamic, and who were the key figures in your upbringing?

I was fortunate to grow up in a supportive family. My father is a physician and professor. He has an intense work ethic and continues to practice medicine part-time in his early 90s. Tennis was our way of bonding; we’d spend weekend evenings hitting balls back and forth for an hour or so. My mother was a home health nurse and was constantly engaged in acts of service for our community, which set a strong example for me, though it took some maturity to fully appreciate it.

I am the youngest of four siblings, with at least a ten-year age gap, so I often depended on school friends for social connection. I am very close to my eldest brother and sister, but they were both away at college during my earliest memories, and I would see them only during the holidays. My relationships with each of them deepened as I entered adulthood, and they have become strong supports and role models for me.

It was a family with high expectations, but I always felt that these standards motivated me rather than feeling overbearing.

Who were the most influential people in your childhood, and what lessons did you learn from them?

I’ve mentioned the important role of my family in my upbringing, but I was also blessed to have many other adults—Scout leaders and church youth mentors—who were significant role models. During my busy teenage years, there wasn’t much family time after school, sports, and homework, so these leaders had an outsized impact simply because of the time I spent with them.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I attended early morning seminary for four years, each weekday at 6 AM, before high school classes. I had great teachers—unpaid volunteers who freely gave their time—and I formed close connections with them that shaped my discipline and values. Many years later, it’s not a single lesson that stands out, but their consistent embodiment of moral character and integrity. They taught me that principles aren’t abstractions but daily choices. They exemplified servant leadership long before I knew what to call it.

What is one of your earliest memories, and how do you think it shaped who you are today?

When I was 12, I joined a 50-mile Scout cycling trek despite having minimal biking experience. Day one was rough; I significantly trailed the pack of thirty kids, forcing my leaders to hang back to keep track of me. Their solution on day two was to put me at the front of the group to set the pace. I recall feeling anxious, worried that I would embarrass myself further—until an older Scout noticed something others had missed: my seat was too low, which hindered my pedaling efficiency. One simple seat adjustment transformed everything. By the end of the day, I was being scolded for going too fast.

That experience taught me something I still carry into my work today: effort matters, but so do systems. Sometimes progress depends less on pushing harder and more on noticing what’s misaligned. In my professional life, I try to identify small structural fixes that can unlock untapped capacity in communities and institutions.

Were there any cultural or family traditions from your childhood that helped define your values?

I have fond memories of traveling to Northern California a couple of times a year to visit my maternal grandparents during holiday breaks. They grew up during the Great Depression, so they had an aversion to waste and were very appreciative of what they had. My grandfather had earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), but his father didn’t allow him to attend, as his help was needed on the family farm. He was extremely industrious and skilled with his hands—he repurposed an old truck into a tractor, dug a cellar under his house by hand, and would repeatedly repair clothing or household items rather than discarding them.

The one luxury he indulged in was a freezer in the barn stocked with ice cream. Having missed out on such treats growing up, he valued the simple pleasure of a small bowl each night and letting his grandchildren pick a flavor when we visited.

Observing my grandparents’ mindset of gratitude and frugality, as well as seeing what they were able to achieve and how happy they were despite their struggles, left a lasting impression on me about what truly matters in life.

What motivated you to study what you studied?

I began college as an aerospace engineering major because I loved physics, while also taking pre-med courses since my father was a physician. Neither felt like the right fit. After exploring other options, I discovered my passion in Economics and International Relations. I was fascinated by how abstract theories could illuminate real-world power dynamics and development challenges.

At what age did you start working, and what did your first job involve?

At fourteen, I worked for an elderly couple maintaining their small farm. It was hard physical labor in California’s summer heat—hauling, pruning, and weeding—but I preferred it to fast-food work and enjoyed the solitude. That job taught me the value of honest effort and tangible progress, a mindset that helps me stay patient with the slower, subtler pace of policy change.

How would you describe your current job and its responsibilities?

I divide my time between business and nonprofit work. On the business side, I lead a global risk advisory and business development consultancy that serves multinational clients across emerging and frontier markets.

The nonprofit side grew out of reflection during the pandemic. After reaching many of my professional goals, I wanted to create something more enduring and socially meaningful. That led me to found the Geneva-based Center for Advocacy and Global Growth (CAGG) in 2021. My friend Gonzalo Dieguez, formerly a director at the Latin American think tank CIPPEC, became CAGG’s Executive Director.

CAGG reverses the usual development model. Instead of Northern organizations setting the agenda for the Global South, we help local think tanks and civil groups define their own priorities. We then connect them to funding, partnerships, and global platforms. For example, we established a training hub in Spain that has provided instruction in digital transformation and sustainability for Ibero-American leaders over the past four years. We have also co-organized events with think tanks, development banks, and the Government of Brazil for the COP30 climate conference in Belém. Currently, we are collaborating with the Finnish government and several African governments on a fellowship program for emerging African civil-service leaders.

While we obtain donor funding to directly support specific projects, CAGG’s core operations are privately funded, which allows us to preserve our independence. As President, I set strategic direction and stay closely involved in programs that excite me. I eventually plan to transition full-time to CAGG and hope that the path from business to a purpose-driven second chapter becomes more common.

You’ve worked at the crossroads of social innovation and governance. How do you define “good governance” in practice, beyond the buzzword?

Having lived on five continents, I have seen that good governance is not about perfect outcomes but about responsive systems. It means crafting policies with a genuine intent to improve lives, and having the humility to adjust when results diverge from plans. A governance strategy that works in one African country may not work as well elsewhere in Africa, let alone in Asia or Latin America.

Intent matters because perfect information does not exist. Even well-designed policies can fail due to unforeseen factors. Reality is almost always more complex than what can be anticipated from behind a desk. Policymakers who genuinely seek the public good iterate and adapt. For example, an anti-corruption law might unintentionally create red tape that hurts small businesses. Good governance notices the harm and adjusts; bad governance ignores it.

Advocacy often achieves visibility but not structural change. What do you see as the most reliable ways to measure whether advocacy efforts have real, lasting impact?

Advocacy is incremental chess, not checkers. At CAGG, we track three horizons: immediate outputs, such as funding secured or partnerships formed; medium-term outcomes, such as policy language adopted or new stakeholder coalitions created; and long-term impacts, like sustained institutional behavior or transformation of the public narrative.

The key is honest analysis of the many influence pathways rather than claiming sole credit. Real impact often emerges from advocacy ecosystems where many actors push complementary agendas. We measure whether we meaningfully accelerated change rather than claiming exclusive credit.

Governments sometimes co-opt advocacy language without changing policy. How do you track the difference between symbolic commitments and genuine reforms?

Our Global South partners are deeply embedded in their communities, which makes them reliable truth-testers. We track whether commitments translate into budgets, training, and tangible outcomes. Symbolic adoption can sometimes lead to real change, so we don’t dismiss it entirely. We watch closely to see whether symbolism is used to stall or to build momentum for genuine reform. The difference becomes clear over time.

CAGG’s mission touches on accountability. What tools or frameworks do you think best capture whether advocacy actually holds power to account?

We combine outcome mapping—which tracks how change happens, not just what changes—with contribution analysis, which evaluates our real role within a broader ecosystem of collective change. Our partners use civic engagement metrics, policy tracker databases, and citizen feedback loops to assess whether power holders respond to advocacy pressure. Our goal is to triangulate across sources rather than rely on a single metric.

Some say advocacy impact can’t be quantified. Do you agree, or do you believe in hard indicators like legislative changes, budget reallocations, or enforcement outcomes?

I think both perspectives are partially correct. Hard indicators, such as laws passed, budgets shifted, and enforcement rates, provide essential anchors. But advocacy also builds what I call “soft infrastructure”—the networks, literacy, and civic habits that make future progress possible.

Measuring advocacy is like measuring human health; we need to consider both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments. Blood pressure matters, but so does whether someone can climb the stairs without gasping.

What is the risk that international advocacy creates narratives that resonate abroad but miss the lived reality of local communities?

This is a persistent challenge. International advocacy can inadvertently create ‘astroturf’ movements that look grassroots but lack authentic local ownership. At CAGG, we’ve deliberately inverted the typical model by having our Global South partners set the agenda rather than imposing external frameworks. We require all initiatives to have local co-designers to ensure we capture community realities, not assumptions from those far removed.

Bridging the gap between purely theoretical solutions and the vastly different problems on the ground is key to any organization’s legitimacy, whether public or private. No citizen or client will truly trust you if your proposed solution fails to work well in practice.

Can advocacy be considered successful if it only raises awareness but fails to influence decision-making? Where do you personally draw that line?

In the short term, yes. In the long term, not really. Advocacy is an incremental tool, and its timelines can be long. However, changing public consciousness often precedes policy change by years or even decades. We see that in the U.S. civil rights movement, which built awareness for decades before achieving legislative victories.

I draw the line based on trajectory and intent. If awareness-building has a credible path to influence—through voter education, coalition-building, or media framing—then it is valuable. However, awareness as the sole endpoint is a participation trophy.

How do you measure the indirect or ripple effects of advocacy, such as shifting public opinion or changing the way media covers an issue?

We analyze media sentiment, social engagement, and polling data where available. More importantly, we look for subtle shifts: when journalists start using our partners’ language, when politicians address issues they once ignored, or when public debate evolves. These narrative changes often foreshadow policy shifts.

In your experience, what are the biggest mistakes organizations make when they try to prove their advocacy impact to donors or governments?

Three stand out. First, claiming sole credit for multi-actor achievements. Second, highlighting only successes while hiding failures. Third, measuring activity instead of influence.

Some organizations confuse noise for impact. A thousand retweets might mean less than one quiet conversation with a decision-maker. Donors need honest contribution stories, not oversimplified tales of success. The best organizations acknowledge the ecosystem while articulating their specific value-add.

How do you balance the short-term wins that please funders with the long-term systemic changes that communities really need?

This is a real dilemma for many organizations in development cooperation, especially as financing mechanisms are increasingly reduced or redirected toward other political priorities. We are fortunate to avoid that tension because our core operations are mainly privately funded. That independence allows us to select work based on impact potential rather than marketability. It enables us to focus on the long-term institution-building that real change requires.

Can you share an example where advocacy failed, and what that failure revealed about the limits of the tools you were using to measure it?

In several projects we promoted through CAGG in Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean, we had to fundamentally adjust our strategies. The failure wasn’t in the advocacy goals themselves, but in the tools we were using to measure progress.

We discovered that standard monitoring and evaluation methodologies from North-South cooperation mechanisms were extremely difficult to implement properly in some contexts. These tools assumed conditions—digital access, urban density, formal structures—that simply didn’t exist in many rural communities.

We also observed that cross-cutting issues, like the gender gap and digital divide, manifested very differently in rural versus urban populations. What looked like ‘low engagement’ by standard metrics might actually represent high engagement through channels we weren’t measuring. The idiosyncrasies of each country required alternative approaches for measuring civil society involvement and citizen participation.

Our key lesson was that many traditional donor evaluation frameworks, often designed in the Global North, can blind us to real impact. From my perspective, CAGG’s main contribution isn’t imposing new metrics but using our expertise and networks to connect diverse stakeholders into coalitions that can truly shape change. These consortia help us understand what success actually looks like in each context. Without them, achieving effective implementation of cooperation projects is nearly impossible—not because advocacy fails, but because we were measuring the wrong things.

How do you assess whether advocacy is empowering citizens to act for themselves, rather than just amplifying the voices of elites or NGOs?

We track who is truly participating and who benefits. The distinction between being heard and being empowered is what matters most. Are community members leading campaigns or just being consulted? Are marginalized voices central or peripheral?

We use participatory power analysis and require our partners to demonstrate how their work is shifting agency to citizens, not merely speaking for them.

Some critics argue that advocacy networks are too donor-driven. How do you ensure measurement frameworks reflect local priorities rather than external agendas?

We use a bottom-up indicator approach that allows communities to define their own success measures before projects begin. We then aggregate these into broader impact narratives for donors. It’s less tidy, but far more authentic.

How do you think technology — from social media analytics to AI-driven data — can improve or distort how we measure advocacy’s effectiveness?

Technology is a double-edged sword. AI can help us process vast amounts of unstructured data and reveal patterns we might miss manually. But it can also create a false sense of certainty and the illusion that dashboards equal understanding. The risk is optimizing for what’s digitally measurable rather than what matters socially. Technology should amplify human judgment, not replace it.

Looking ahead, what would a truly rigorous, transparent, and inclusive framework for measuring advocacy impact look like, and who should be responsible for designing it?

It would be adaptive, transparent, and collaborative—blending real-time data with long-term insight, and balancing quantitative rigor with qualitative depth. Communities, practitioners, academics, and funders would co-design it, governed by a consortium that prevents dominance by any one group.

It would track contribution rather than attribution, systems not just outcomes, and capabilities not just deliverables. Most importantly, it would evolve continuously through shared learning rather than remaining static. Think of it as a Wikipedia for advocacy measurement—collectively built, constantly improving, and radically transparent.

Which book, film, or piece of art has influenced how you see the world, and in what way?

Clayton Christensen’s The Prosperity Paradox reshaped how I think about development. He challenged the conventional wisdom that prosperity comes after good governance, arguing instead that market-creating innovations can spark better institutions. This isn’t about abandoning governance work but recognizing that economic opportunity often drives demand for better institutions faster than advocacy alone.

This has influenced how CAGG approaches advocacy, as we focus on creating tangible new possibilities rather than just fixing existing problems. Sometimes the best advocacy creates alternatives rather than adjusting what already exists.

When you look at younger generations, what gives you hope and what worries you?

Their global consciousness gives me enormous hope. They instinctively understand interconnection and reject narrow identities. What worries me is that, in a world of instant gratification, the slow, patient work of institution-building can feel outdated. Real change still takes time.

If you could spend a full day with any historical figure—not for their fame but for their mind—who would it be, and what would you ask them?

Given my faith, it would be inauthentic to name anyone other than Jesus Christ. That said, a choice aligned with the themes of this interview would be the late Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. I love his books, particularly How Will You Measure Your Life? and The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty.

I would want to ask him how to apply disruptive innovation theory to governance systems that seem resistant to change, and how to create “good-enough” alternatives that eventually transform entrenched institutions from below.

If you had to teach a class on something completely unrelated to your career, what would you teach and why?

I’d love to teach the history and science of “moonshots,” both technological and social. Audacious goals fascinate me because they spark innovation even when they fall short, showing how failure can still move the frontier forward. The Apollo program revolutionized materials science and advanced computing in ways no one predicted. The War on Cancer hasn’t eliminated cancer (yet) but has transformed our understanding of cellular biology.

If you could ensure that one value or principle is never lost in society, which would it be?

Civil discourse. We live in a highly polarized world, but conflict doesn’t have to equal contention. Not all sides will reach agreement, but we can do more to be respectful of differing beliefs and values. Dialogue and active listening allow us to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, creating empathy.

For a healthy democracy, maintaining relationships across disagreement is essential. Without that, every other social value becomes vulnerable. We cannot solve the world’s large collective challenges if we cannot talk across our differences.

Humanity is facing radical changes. To name just ten: geopolitical instability, climate change, economic inequalities, technological risks, public health challenges, political polarization, resource scarcity, humanitarian crises, misinformation, and disparities in global healthcare access. If, in an imaginative exercise, you had the power to solve one of these problems, which one would you choose and why?

The collapse of civil discourse and resulting political polarization is the meta-crisis enabling all others. Climate change, inequality, and technological risks all require collective action across differences. Without the ability to engage constructively, we are paralyzed.

I’d rebuild our capacity for productive disagreement—maintaining cohesion to act on shared challenges while respecting genuine value differences. With restored civic dialogue, I believe we could make steady progress on other challenges. Without it, we risk cascading institutional failure.

What do you think humans owe each other, if anything at all?

My faith teaches that we’re all spirit children of a loving God. Even from a secular perspective, our radical interdependence creates mutual obligation: your suffering diminishes me, and my flourishing requires yours.

At minimum, we owe each other the dignity of being seen, heard, and valued. Beyond that, we owe one another the opportunity to flourish—not just survive. This doesn’t mean identical outcomes, but ensuring everyone has meaningful chances to develop their capabilities and contribute their gifts.

Could you share something from 2025 that didn’t go as expected and what you learned from it?

We designed a six-month fellowship for emerging African civil service leaders, partnering with African and European institutions. After successful similar programs in Latin America, we expected smooth execution. However, identifying suitable candidates took months longer than expected, and building local partnerships in several target countries proved elusive.

We’re now on track to launch in mid-2026, but the experience taught invaluable lessons: geographic expansion requires patient relationship-building, not just program replication. Each context has unique institutional rhythms and trust-building requirements. What works in São Paulo might fail in Nairobi—not because one is harder, but because each has distinct organizational cultures, power structures, and communication patterns. Humility can be just as important as expertise when entering new territories.

What personal goals—if you feel comfortable sharing—do you have for 2026?

My professional travel schedule is demanding, which creates tension with being present for my young children. My 2026 goal is to make our family time more intentional—not just being home, but fully present, creating memories and teaching moments that will serve as foundational pillars for my kids as they grow into adulthood.

Imagine you are in the final moments of your life. What work-related news would you like to hear, and why?

We are living at an exciting moment when technological breakthroughs in AI, energy, and biotechnology could usher in unprecedented abundance in knowledge, resources, and opportunity. Yet abundance will only be real if we design systems that ensure its benefits reach all of humanity.

The communities closest to challenges often hold the most innovative ideas; they just need platforms and credibility to share them globally. There will inevitably be short-term messiness as societies adapt to rapid technological disruption, but we need an “abundance transition” grounded in shared knowledge rather than concentrated advantage.

I would want to hear that the Global South think tanks we’ve supported have become the go-to voices on their regions’ challenges. That would signal that our work transformed scarcity mindsets into abundance realities and redistributed not just resources, but epistemic power—the authority to define which problems matter and whose solutions count.

SOURCE: https://theysaidso.org/philip-khan-by-julian-ginzo/