Stakeholder Analysis Essay Example

Stakeholder Analysis Essay Example Stakeholder Analysis Essay Stakeholder Analysis Essay These guidelines are part of a set of five that BirdLife is using to ensure that projects at IBAs have the participation and ownership of local people, and to help design actions that achieve the linked objectives of improved local livelihoods and IBA conservation. The guidelines should be used as a linked and complementary set. The series comprises: Guidelines on Project Planning: The Logical Framework Approach, a Project Design and Analysis Tool Guidelines for Participatory Poverty Assessment at IBAs and the identification of poverty reduction indicators Guidelines on Stakeholder analysis Guidelines for Site Support Group Institutional Analysis Guidelines for basic monitoring of Important Bird Areas Feedback on the guidelines, so that they can be developed and improved, is much appreciated. Please send your comments to david. [emailprotected] org The main source for these guidelines was: Bibby, C. J and Alder, C. 2003 (eds) The conservation project manual. Cambridge, UK: BP Conservation Programme 1. How to identify the stakeholders The objectives of stakeholder identification are twofold: to get a clear understanding as to who the main stakeholders are, and to understand their values, beliefs, problems and attitudes towards the project. Stakeholder identification will also give you a good understanding as to who should be directly involved in project planning. Internal stakeholders (i. e. those included within the likely partnership for your project) are relatively easy to identify. You should by now have a good idea about the objectives, strengths and weaknesses of your team and project partners, and the initial project idea should give you a sufficient insight of which specialist knowledge will be required to implement the project. External stakeholders (i. e. those likely to remain outside the project partnership but who may be affected by the project or have some other interest in its outcome) are much more difficult to identify. The first task (often overlooked) is to differentiate sufficiently between your stakeholders. It is not good enough for example merely to limit the definition of villagers around a national park to ‘local people’. There are likely to be huge differences within this group and the aim should be, as much as practical, to define homogeneous groups with similar characteristics. In its simplest form, people who know the project situation very well can simply brainstorm the list of important stakeholders and analyse their characteristics in the form of a stakeholder analysis (see below). However, more often than not, planners need to analyse the situation in the field. For simple projects, it might be sufficient to consult key informants. These are individuals who know the local situation well, such as village heads, local government officials, local teachers and religious leaders. Larger projects will often require more detailed specialist studies to fully understand the socio-economic environment of the project. Clearly, the most direct method of involving stakeholders is to involve everybody directly in the project planning. While this is feasible for some small projects, it is clearly impossible to do if large numbers of people are involved. You should therefore consult directly with every stakeholder group through formal and/or informal surveys, group discussions or similar tools of participatory approaches. True participatory planning requires special skills in team dynamics, visualisation, interview and facilitation techniques (and therefore requires specialist input). 2. Stakeholder analysis The challenge is to take the viewpoints and actions of these specific groups into account. The objectives and interests of the people, social groups or institutions participating in or affected by the project should always be ncluded in planning, through a stakeholder analysis. This step is generally done during the planning workshop, after a thorough analysis of the situation in the field. The objectives of the stakeholder analysis are: to list and characterise the major stakeholders to understand their present and potential roles and responsibilities to understand their interests, fears, problems and potentials to draw conclusi ons for the planning of the project. List of main stakeholders 1 This step is a simple collection of names of relevant groups. There are often a large number of stakeholders involved. It is therefore highly recommended to cluster stakeholders into homogeneous groups with similar characteristics, problems and interests. On the other hand, great care should be taken not to lump different groups together. Even â€Å"conservation groups† for example may not be sufficiently differentiated category each conservation organisation within such a grouping may well have its own particular perspective on an issue. Always refer back to the project idea to check whether a group is really a major stakeholder or not. This will often become an iterative process once you have put together your initial project plan and have developed a clearer focus of what it will do, you will probably have to reconsider your stakeholder analysis to identify any additional stakeholders in relation to this. Analysis of stakeholders The second step is an analysis of each stakeholder group in terms of its characteristics, impact and relation to the project. There are many different ways to do a stakeholder analysis. We recommend the planning group agrees the headings under which each group is analysed. Conventionally, these include: main characteristics such as social structure, interests (what makes them tick), impact on the present situation, fears and expectations. In many situations there may be important differences in interests, impacts etc. between men and women. Therefore if appropriate stakeholder groups should be differentiated according to gender. Recommendations, prioritisation and project design Following the above analysis, the planning group should agree a recommendation as to what the project should do to address the findings of the analysis and which priority should be given to its implementation. Results of the stakeholder analysis should be presented in a short summary of the findings. An extract of a stakeholder analysis is presented below. Some stakeholders might have negative views of the project and their positions need to be understood to work in the right direction; different stakeholders have different degrees of potential contribution and impact and might be involved in the project in different ways; representatives of all the major groups would be needed to formulate a plan that had a good chance of success. When the analysis is complete, it is essential to ensure that the proposal shows clearly how the recommendations are taken into account in the project activities and monitoring plan. 2 3. The Stakeholder Analysis Report Please prepare your stakeholder analysis report according to the following outline: 1. Method 1. 1 How was the stakeholder analysis carried out? (describe any meetings/workshops, consultation, review of documents etc. ) 1. 2 If you held a stakeholder analysis workshop, who was present? 1. 3 Which groups did these people represent? 2. Results 2. Complete a summary table (using the framework shown in Annex 1) 2. 2 Provide a more detailed description of the main stakeholders, expanding on the information in the table 3. Implications for project implementation 3. 1 How will the different stakeholders be engaged in the project? (i. e. how will you ensure that they are kept briefed about project progress, that they support the project and are involved? ) 3. 2 What will be t he role of the different stakeholders in the project? (i. e. How will they be involved – as project partners, as beneficiaries, other? Will they be directly involved in implementation, in decision-making, as part of a steering committee? ) 3. 3 Are there any stakeholders with negatives views of the project? If so, how will this situation be addressed? 3. 4 How has this stakeholder analysis influenced the project design, activities and implementation strategy? Annex 1: Partially filled in stakeholder analysis for a project aiming to conserve wetlands with high population density Stakeholder Characteristics Main interests what are their main interests or motivations? Impact on situation what impact do they currently have on the situation the project is interested in? Interests, fears, expectations what is their reaction to the project likely to be? Relation to project what is most likely position that they will adopt vis-a-vis the project? Potential impact how important or serious might consequences be for the project? (low, med, high, critical) Recommendations Priority identity of group or individuals what sort of person or organisation are they? Implications of this for the project plan Rank importance of stakeholder to project success (high, med, low) Policy makers Elected, influential, temporary Satisfy needs of people, reelection Central Govt conservation departments Central Govt development departments Some influence on policy makers and donors, under-funded Knowledge of development issues, Wide contacts, strong influence on policy makers Nature Conservation Development and poverty alleviation Support of fishers and farmers; little knowledge of conservation Limited awareness Like positive publicity, fear that project could hinder development Would like to lead, staff input Potential supporters High Keep informed, convince of benefits if in doubt High Project partner Critical Involve closely at all stages of planning and implementation High Local Govt services [fishery, etc list them, one by one] Local government Hunters from elsewhere Herders National conservation NGOs Researchers Subsistence fishers Artisanal fishers Industrial fishers 4 5