National Forum for Advocacy Nepal (NAFAN) is a non-governmental organization registered in the district administration office of Lalitpur district. It is a non-profit making organization working to uplift the socio–economic condition of marginalized communities by following rights-based approaches to development programming. Gender-friendly development, biodiversity conservation, equitable access to natural resources, and mainstreaming unprivileged groups in development are some of the priorities of NAFAN.
NAFAN was founded in June 2004 by professionals trained in human rights, law, environment, and advocacy strategies. The organization was taken as an umbrella of such professionals so that they could share experiences, and lessons and enhance advocacy knowledge and skills of not only NAFAN members but also many other like-minded organizations in Nepal. This is the reason for naming this organization as a national forum.
After political changes in 1990, some non-governmental organizations advocated and persuaded the government to change some policies and legislations relating to forestry, women's property rights, and consumer protection issues. Some of these policy changes brought good impacts on the protection of rights of the underprivileged, marginalized communities and women. Some of the groups launched movements for ensuring access to natural resources and benefit sharing. Some organizations raised issues of gender and equity, and some others raised the issues of bounded labor and so on. All of such organizations and groups faced a tough time during the movements. Therefore, such members of civil society organizations realized that Public Advocacy in isolation did not produce the intended results. Since then the need for a national-level forum as a resource organization for public advocacy on various issues was strongly felt
