2. Involve Stakeholders
in Planning, Problem Solving and Decision Making
|
|
Stakeholder
Involvement and Collaboration
|
|
WHAT?
|
Stakeholder involvement is the early and extensive engagement
of stakeholders in the process of planning, decision making, and
implementation. Stakeholders are those effecting change in the
community and those affected by it. Stakeholder collaboration uses
a stakeholder group with sufficient authority to apply
collaborative learning and conflict resolution techniques to
formulate effective and acceptable decisions.
|
|
WHY?
|
Traditional public participation methods of informing publics
and obtaining their feedback on project and program proposals have
not been effective in engaging citizens in community decisions and
in resolving conflicts. Stakeholder involvement has three
objectives:
-
Avoid Conflict: collaborative efforts aim to engage
stakeholders in a process of resolving conflicts among them
through negotiation, mediation, and collaborative learning.
-
Develop a "Shared Vision": collaborative efforts
intend for the stakeholders to come up with a vision or
direction that they can agree to and buy into.
-
Formulate Creative Solutions: all collaborative efforts
hope to use dialogue and group processes to develop creative
solutions that may not have emerged from traditional planning
exercises.
|
|
WHO?
|
Stakeholders are those effecting change in the community and
those affected by it. These may include government agencies,
private land owners and developers, community and other interest
groups, non-government organizations, and citizens. The list of
stakeholders will depend on the project, conflict, or issues to be
addressed. It should be as inclusive as possible, and stakeholders
can be added as time goes on.
|
|
WHEN?
|
It is important to begin stakeholder involvement early in the
process before interests become entrenched. However, the adage
"better late than never" holds true here. While more
difficult than starting early, in many cases stakeholder
collaboration at a later stage of a process has helped resolve
conflict.
|
| WHERE? |
The location of stakeholder meetings
should be left to the stakeholder group. |
|
HOW?
|
|
|
STRENGTHS & LIMITATIONS
|
Stakeholder involvement and
collaborative decisionmaking represent a high level of
participation and a goal for a wide range of public involvement
programs. However, it is not easy, and must be complemented in
many cases with conflict resolution. To achieve effective
collaboration, a number of conditions or prerequisites are needed,
including:
 |
Good
information |
|
Time
to participate, to build trust, to learn, to resolve
disputes, to create solutions |
|
Commitment
of participants |
|
Willingness
to learn among participants |
|
Shared
authority and responsibility to affect and implement
decisions |
Conversely, the lack of any of these conditions serves as a
barrier to collaboration. Misinformation, insufficient time, lack
of commitment and responsibility, entrenched positions, or uneven
authority can undermine the collaborative process. In addition, if
litigation or legal precedent is a goal of certain stakeholders,
collaboration clearly will not work. |
|
CASES
|
|
|
REFERENCES & LINKS
|
Community
Toolbox: Bringing Solutions to Light
University of Kansas Work Group on Health Promotion and Community
Development in Lawrence, KS, and AHEC/Community Partners in
Amherst, Massachusetts
Participation
Sourcebook
The World Bank
Public
Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decision Making
Federal Highway Administration, September 1996
|
|
