Multistakeholder Engagement
Overview
Integrated land use initiatives require the collaboration of a diverse range of stakeholders with different, often competing interests, making multistakeholder engagement critical to program success. Stakeholder engagement is an ongoing, iterative process vital to all stages of integrated land use initiatives. Experience suggests that programs that focus on ensuring sustained stakeholder engagement achieve better results.
Key Elements
Best Practices
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION: Ensure community representation in program design, implementation, and monitoring.
ENGAGEMENT OF STAKEHOLDERS FROM DIFFERENT SECTORS/LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT: Collectively identify issues in environmental governance, and drivers of deforestation; identify and develop specialized strategies for specific stakeholders in different sectors.
CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT: Empower stakeholders through investing in training/skills.
CONSENSUS BUILDING: Work with stakeholders to craft agreements based on collective goals.
ACCOUNTABILITY: Carefully design incentives to stimulate participation and ownership.
SOCIAL INCLUSION: Ensure participation of women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and other historically marginalized groups.
Resources
The Landscape Approach for Sustainability in African AgriBusiness Partnerships: Partnerships That Support Excellent Companies, Communities, and Ecosystems
This booklet, published by EcoAgriculture Partners, helps promote engagement between business and landscape leaders in Africa.
Authors: Lee Gross and Louis Wertz
Available at: https://ecoagriculture.org/publication/landscape-approach-sustainability-african-agribusiness/
The MSP Guide: How to Design and Facilitate Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships
This guidebook, developed by Wageningen University, draws on theoretical foundations and practical knowledge to guide practitioners through fostering multistakeholder partnerships.
Authors: Herman Brouwer, Jim Woodhill, Minu Hemmati, Karèn Verhoosel, and Simone van Vugt
Available at: http://www.mspguide.org/msp-guide
Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) Stakeholder Mapping Toolkit: A Practical Guide for Stakeholder Analysis in PPD Using the Net-Map Method
This guidebook was developed by the World Bank Group to guide practitioners through the process of stakeholder analysis using the Net-MAP method to: design dialogue platforms and identify stakeholders; create a dialogue element for an existing project; ensure the right participants are involved; facilitate dialogue to better understand obstacles to reform related to political economy; bridge divides between partners; create strategic reform communications plans; build stakeholder knowledge and capacity to catalyze reform.
Available at: http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/842721467995900796/pdf/106395-WP-PUBLIC-PPD-Stakeholder-Mapping-Toolkit-2016.pdf
SocNetV: Social Network Analysis and Visualization Software
This open-source tool helps practitioners undertake social network analysis. The tool allows practitioners to draw social networks, load field data, and analyze network properties.
Available at: https://socnetv.org/
Stakeholder Approach to Risk-Informed and Evidence-Based Decision Making (SHARED)
The SHARED methodology was developed by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) to help policymakers build robust multistakeholder partnerships. SHARED has been designed to produce tailored, cross-sectoral, multistakeholder engagement structures for resolving power asymmetries, building trust, and fostering collaboration. Some of its key services include developing and implementing stakeholder and sectoral engagement processes, undertaking thematic research synthesis, and building capacity for data assimilation and interpretation to enable decision making.
More information available at: https://www.worldagroforestry.org/shared
Who Counts Most? Assessing Human Well-Being in Sustainable Forest Management
The Center for International Forestry Research’s (CIFOR) stakeholder evaluation tool is based on seven factors: proximity to forests, pre-existing rights, dependency, Indigenous knowledge, poverty, power deficit, and forest/ culture integration.
Authors: Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Ravi Prabhu, Mario Günter, Cynthia McDougall, Noemi Miyasaka Porro, and Roberto Porro
Available at: https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/toolbox8.pdf