Stakeholder involvement

Practical guide to involve stakeholders in the WFD process

Guidance Document no.8

1 Introduction

2 Stakeholders

• Organizations and people that have a direct impact on water quality management or are directly affected by the relevant policies. This group includes: water authorities; industries using water and/or dumping their wastewater; farmers; water cleaning companies; regulators on the local, regional, national and international level dealing with water issues and subjects of environment, agriculture and safety, or with conventions such as international river committees; harbour authorities; shipping companies; dredging companies; organizations maintaining natural defences; water managers; owners of nature areas; and citizens that are directly affected by the measures planned or taken.
• Organizations and people that have an impact on the relevant decision making. This group covers: citizens; landowners; homeowners; insurance companies; NGOs such as Greenpeace and the WWF; scientists; and drinking-water companies.
• Those who have an indirect impact on or are indirectly affected by implementation of the WFD This group consists of all the other users of the waterways and fisheries, and includes citizens.

The above mentioned WFD-CIS Guidance Document no.8 provides examples of public participation in water management projects.

3 Why stakeholders should be involved

In modern society, parties other than governments have obstructive power. That is, they have the ability to obstruct or even block a decision or the implementation of a certain policy. The early involvement of stakeholders reduces the risk of the policy not being carried out. Stakeholder involvement, therefore, can be regarded as counteracting obstructive power (Renn, 1995; Healy, 1997). Such a choice will slow down the policy process in the early phases, but will speed it up in a later phase.
 
The above mentioned reason for stakeholder involvement is sometimes regarded as a negative one, born out of strategic considerations. However, there is a positive motive as well. This considers enrichment. Policy makers do not possess all the resources, i.e. knowledge, required for the design, planning and implementation of sophisticated policies such as environmental policies. Relevant knowledge is in most cases distributed among several stakeholders. This counts the more for sustainable management of River Basins, a subject where knowledge is still fragmented and debated. From that point of view it is wise to invite stakeholders from the relevant fields in order to obtain and apply knowledge and information generated by them (Fisher, 2000).
The last argument for stakeholder involvement is fairness. It is fair to involve actors affected by policy, and give them a say in the decision-making process. This raises awareness and creates support for the issue and its solutions.

 
As a final remark on the motives for stakeholder involvement, we want to point out that stakeholders, especially the organized ones, often will look for ways to get involved themselves, as they are aware of their stake in the process.

4 Stakeholder analysis

• Convening
• Identification of Stakes
• Inventory of relations between stakeholders

4.1 Step 1: Convening
The first step in the process of involving stakeholders is often referred to as convening, i.e. getting people to the table. This consists of four (sub) steps: assessing a situation (convening assessment); identifying and inviting the stakeholders; locating the necessary resources; and organizing and planning of the process (Susskind, 1999). We will focus here on the identification and analysis of the stakeholders.

Stakeholder and network analysis starts with assembling a list of all relevant stakeholders. This can be done with a small group of people belonging to the convening organization, who know the issues and have an overview of possible stakeholders. This group should be diverse, as this prevents a one-sided selection of stakeholders. The first step in the process is to identify the different perspectives on the issue with a wide variety of people. At this stage of the process, the goal is not to identify people or organizations who should be involved. At this point, the way the different stakeholders look at the issues and solutions is categorized. The second step is to see which sub-perspectives can be identified. The third step is to identify different key persons or organizations within the identified sub-perspectives. The result of the last step will be a list of stakeholders.
 
//PM: add example stakeholder analysis from one of the SOCOPSE cases.

4.2 Step 2: Identify the Stakes
The list of stakeholders is the steppingstone for the next phase of the stakeholder analysis: to identify the interests and goals of these stakeholders in the process.
For each stakeholder the following questions should be addressed (Pröpper, 1999):
 

• What will the stakeholders contribute to the process?
• What kind of knowledge do they possess?
• What are the relevant interests and goals of the stakeholders?
• How do the stakeholders interpret the issue at hand?
• How well-informed are the stakeholders about the issue?
• What are the (possible) motives for these stakeholders to participate, or not to participate?

The majority of these questions can be answered based on experience or policy documents. However, it will always be necessary to do a number of interviews with stakeholders to get more background information. The benefit of this is that the interviews will create a means for people to voice their concerns about the issue, which they might be reluctant to do when confronted with other stakeholders (Susskind, 1999).

4.3 Step 3: Make an inventory of relations between stakeholders
The final phase in the stakeholder analysis is to make an inventory of the relations between the different stakeholders. This is necessary to understand certain attitudes or actions of stakeholders. Relations can be identified by desk research, but also by asking the stakeholders themselves. It is usually very helpful to visualize relations between stakeholders and to identify them as positive or negative for the process. By making this transparent, it is possible to deal with negative relations and to use positive relations to improve the quality of the process.

5  How to involve stakeholders?

5.1 Introductory remark
The process of stakeholder involvement should require an independent chairperson or process manager. Such a person should not be attached to the involved parties and should be as independent as possible. The arrangement for their payment, for instance, should reflect that. They should be paid by a mixture of stakeholders in order to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interests.

5.2 Step 1: Identify the stake holders to be involved
The first step for the process manager in the organization of stakeholder involvement is to find out which stakeholders should be involved. For the stakeholder selection the following questions should be answered: Will the stakeholders be affected by the policy? Are they the target group of the policy? Do they have the power to obstruct or the means to enrich? The questions that should be posed differ with the aim of the process (Edelenbos, 2000). A crucial requirement here is variety. Although, at first glance, it seems to make more sense to focus on representativeness, variety should be the guiding thread. This triggers the enrichment of the process and serves as a safety valve against overlooking stakeholders. A good way of assembling a stakeholder´s panel is to ask other stakeholders who they regard as vital for the process. Through this so-called snowball method, other stakeholders who might have been overlooked initially can be invited to the process.
 
5.3 Step 2: Identify the stakes
Next, it is important to collect information about the goals, ambitions and problem definitions (from the various perspectives) of the stakeholders. The process manager should ensure that all these interests are heard and acknowledged in the course of the process. If not, stakeholders might pull out, which could damage the process (see also paragraph 3.6 ). In order to guarantee that all interests are present in the process, the manager should be sure to know them. One must be aware of the difficulties of acquiring the desired information, whereas stakeholders can show strategic behaviour. The stakeholders might want to shield their real interests, as they prefer to hide their agenda. Their real interests can sometimes be obtained better through asking other parties.

5.4 Step 3: Engage Stakeholders
The mobilization of the stakeholders is an important issue. Too often, decision-makers feel that the majority of the potential stakeholders lack interest, whereas some with strong but specific interests dominate the agenda. So it is the duty of the manager to let stakeholders realize what is in it for them. Why should they join the process? A sound and deliberate consideration of interests might persuade less-interested parties to join and will be a signal to dominant forces not to overact. Furthermore, awareness and urgency should be created. This can be done by pointing out the drivers behind the Water Frame Work Directive. These include the regulations issued by the European Commission such as the ‘polluter pays principle´ in the Environmental Liability Directive. Finally, the fairly technical nature of Water quality problems such as contamination needs translation. Laymen and the public cannot be expected to fully understand the technical backgrounds of the problem and, therefore, communication must be clear and free of jargon.
 
The processes of involvement can be arranged at different levels (Gerrits, 2004):

• Information: providing information to the stakeholders.
• Consultation: consulting what stakeholders think must be done.
• Advising: letting stakeholders advise on the policy and taking their recommendations into account.
• Co-producing: stakeholders are regarded as equal policy-makers but decision-making remains in the political domain.
• Co-deciding: decision-making power is handed over to stakeholders.

6 Tools, processes and instruments

6.1 Case-study: dredging an artificial lake inRotterdam , the Netherlands
// PM: later on this example can be replaced by a SOCOPSE case
Because of the need for sediment remediation and the improvement of water quality, a large lake near the city centre of Rotterdam had to be dredged. This meant that 175,000 m3 of sediment had to be taken out and 100,000 m3 of clean sand was needed to replace it. The total costs were 18 million Euros. The area surrounding the lake is densely populated and, therefore, there was a requirement that the work should not become too much of a nuisance for the local citizens. Therefore, the project organization looked upon a number of challenges if they wanted to succeed. The areas that had to be used by the dredging company, such as islands and the shores of the lake, are owned by a diversity of residents, associations and companies. A possible threat to the success of the project could be the non-cooperation or even the obstructive power of these stakeholders.
The communication with the stakeholders was, therefore, taken very seriously. In the preparation phase of the project, clear communication with the stakeholders was organized. This consisted of the distribution of newsletters and the organization of information meetings, where the project approach was presented and the stakeholders could give input to improve and adjust the presented plans based on site-specific knowledge. The fact that they were taken seriously by the project organization also gave a firm support to the project, according to the representatives of a stakeholder group. In addition, because the project organization was clear and honest in their communication, it contributed to the support of the stakeholders. When the project actually started, the communication continued and a special ‘question and complain´ phone line was created, together with so-called ‘walk in´ mornings at the dredging site itself. According to stakeholders, they saw the clear and serious communication as the main reason why they were so supportive of the project. The project is generally seen as a success, which is partly due to good communication, the involvement of the stakeholders and the minimization of nuisance caused by the project to the stakeholders (Hermans, 2005).

7 Risks and pitfalls

Connected to this is the pitfall of lack of communication. The language used by experts is very different and often incomprehensible to laymen. This can create confusion and distrust as other participants might feel that the party concerned holds back information.
 
Another type of pitfall that comes under the heading of ‘asymmetry´ is the different interests and needs of participants. Stakeholders all have different agendas and a pitfall is ignoring some of them or assuming that everyone is aiming at the same goal. This not only applies to individuals but also to countries. Western Europe might be concerned about the environmental impact of pollution, whereas developing countries are usually more concerned about financial considerations.
 
Clashing expectations often exist as participants have different expectations and consequently expect different outcomes. ‘For example, a governing body of a river can invite people living near a dredged material dump site to come up with new ideas about how to address the dumping of contaminated sediments. They are consulted and asked to give a recommendation. However, should this not be properly communicated, then the invitees might believe that they are expected to take part in the decision-making. The result will be that their expectations rise too high, and thus cannot be met, resulting in distrust, downright pessimism and obstruction of the process´ (Gerrits, 2000).
 
Stakeholder out-of-sight situations often exist in the formal decision-making process. Unfortunately, a sharp separation is made between the stakeholder process and the actual decision-making. The process of stakeholder involvement is then regarded as a way to pacify the opposition, where the actual decision mainly serves the interests of the formal decision-maker. Decision-makers should commit themselves to the process, whatever the outcomes.
 
Cross-boundary cooperation presents a whole range of pitfalls and challenges. The management at the river basin scale will often be cross-boundary and, therefore, attention must be paid to the characteristics of international cooperation in stakeholder processes, especially where the cultural differences deserve attention. Cultural differences are closely connected to parties and determine their way of thinking and behaving (Hall, 1976). The interpretation of different cultures is not easy and requires time (Sperber, 1996). Apart from that, different countries have different institutions. Although countries may be adjacent to each other, they still can differ a lot which can create confusion and fragmentation of the decision-making process (De Jong, 1999). Legislation is also part of the institutional dimension. In both national and international legislation, laws and regulations concerning river basin management are fragmented (Palmer, 2000). For the process of stakeholder involvement, this means that the participants should be given time to frame the process into their own legislation. Otherwise, the proposals rising from the process will be lost in the misfit of legislation.

8 Conclusions