Many years ago I discovered the International Institute for Public Participation’s spectrum and was taken by its clarity of articulation of roles and responsibilities around public participation.
This week I ran across a similar piece from ODI on stakeholder engagement in an adaptive management framework.
Both of these are worth a read. A key question is how to take these ideas and put them into practice? In particular from a donor perspective, how do we create a space for consultants to undertake this kind of work?
Five key elements are reflected in the ODI review:
- Strong internal systems and external channels
- Skilled staff that value engagement and
adaptation - Decision-maker champions
- Clear points for reflection and action
- Meaningful role for constituents
As someone from a donor (funding) agency what can I do to make sure that these elements are in place?
My takeaways:
The first and fourth items – can be paired. Stakeholder engagement and adaptive management, to be more than just buzz words, needs to be designed into the project DNA. In this sense the project design, including disbursements, check-ins, and other natural points need to be built in and include by construction opportunities to reflect on what is working, and what is not.
The second and third items relate to having the right staff and management who are tuned in to the need for stakeholder engagement. As a donor this is really tricky – how we engage our partners to value these skills and traits. Frankly, these are not traits that are often highly valued in projects that have a strong infrastructure component – not necessarily the strong suit of engineers (and I should know, I am one). This is further complicated by the fact many operating environments have a history of working with top down management – this impacts both the types of leadership but also the receptivity of those being led. And yet, there are people with these skills and inclinations; our job is to find them.
The last point, brings me back to the Spectrum. What is a meaningful role for constituents and stakeholders? Depends on context of course – but I find the Spectrum a useful guide to make sure that we are talking about stakeholder participation our collective expectations are broadly in sync. We also need to acknowledge that were the level of participation is part of the cultural norms, we need to expend effort in education and training to get fulsome engagement and to manage expectations.
How do you embed stakeholder engagement into a process of adaptive management? What has worked well, and what not so much?