INTRODUCTION:
Public health advocacy is a core function of the profession, essential for influencing policy, tackling inequities, and addressing social, commercial, and political determinants of health. Advocacy increasingly takes place within complicated geopolitical environments, alongside shifting resourcing and mis/disinformation, reinforcing the requirement for public health specialists to navigate national and global complexity. This has redefined where and how advocacy must operate, demanding independence, courage, and system level influencing. The South Africa and United Kingdom public health partnership prioritised advocacy as a core theme, creating a bilateral platform to strengthen capacity, share practice, and reinforce leadership pipelines in each public health system.

METHODS:
Using a comparative, context-informed approach, the session draws on institutional experience, policy engagement and advocacy activities undertaken by both faculties. Collective working has facilitated mapping of how advocacy is conceptualised, embedded within training, and supported in each system. Exchange sessions and scenario-based dialogues (including registrar-led peer learning) have surfaced advocacy strategies from across sensitive and contentious determinants of health in each country. Case examples are used to test theoretical use of advocacy against real world leadership experiences of public health specialists.

RESULTS:
Emerging learning highlights the importance of advocacy skills being cultivated across career stages, including preparing future leaders to engage effectively and to adapt to multi-layered and changing public health contexts (e.g. re-alignment of aid, commercial determinants pressures) affecting strategic and operational options. The value of partnership across two professional public health institutions has surfaced essential lessons for strengthening advocacy capacity across diverse contexts.

CONCLUSIONS:
The partnership approach provides an adjustable mechanism for building advocacy capability that is resilient to the changing needs and increasingly complex world, nationally and internationally. The discussion will offer transferable insights for public health leaders, early career professionals and organisations seeking to support the strengthening of advocacy in their public health environments.