Stakeholders Analysis

Social Assessment Is...
SOCIAL ANALYSIS + PARTICIPATION
a process that provides a framework for prioritizing, gathering, analyzing, and incorporating social information and participation into the design and delivery of development operations.

Social Assessment is a process for ensuring that development operations (i) are informed by
and take into account the key relevant social issues; and (ii) incorporate a participation strategy for
involving a wide range of stakeholders.

Stakeholder Analysis: A Four-Step Process

Step 1. Identify Key Stakeholders

Assess:

• Who are potential beneficiaries?
• Who might be adversely impacted?
• Have vulnerable groups been identified?
• Have supporters and opponents been identified?
• What are the relationships among the stakeholders?

Stakeholder Analysis is essentially a four-step process. This page and those that follow describe each step in the analysis, indicate who should be involved in the work, and then provide a series of matrices that can help to guide the process. The first step of a 'Stakeholder Analysis is to identify the key stakeholders-whose participation will be sought-from the large array of institutions and individuals that could potentially affect or be affected by the proposed intervention. This can be achieved by drawing up a simple list. When answering the questions above, consider the borrower, beneficiaries, affected groups, and other interested groups (including the World Bank). The list that results from this exercise can provide the first input into the

Stakeholder Analysis matrices included below.

Stakeholder Analysis

Step 2. Assess Stakeholder Interests and the Potential Impact
of the Project on These Interests

Assess:

• What are the stakeholder's expectations of the project?
• What benefits are there likely to be for the stakeholders?
• What resources might the stakeholder be able and
  willing to mobilize?
• What stakeholder interests conflict with project goals?

Once the key stakeholder groups have been identified, their possible interests in the project or economic and sector work (ESW) can be considered. Some stakeholder interests are less obvious than others and may be difficult to define, especially if they are "hidden," multiple, or in contradiction with the stated aims or objectives of the organization or individual. The above questions can guide the inquiry into the interests of each key stakeholder or group. In the case of some institutions these questions can be answered through a review of secondary information. For more informal groups and local people, assessment of their interests will probably require some form of consultation, either directly with these stakeholders or with people "on-the-ground" who are familiar with these groups. With this background, consideration can be given to how the project might affect these interests-positively or negatively. All of this information can be summarized and added to the Stakeholder Analysis matrices.

Step 3. Assess Stakeholder Influence and Importance

For each stakeholder group, assess its:

• power and status (political, social, and economic)
• degree of organization
• control of strategic resources
• informal influence (for example personal connections)
• power relations with other stakeholders
• importance to the success of the project.

Influence refers to the power that stakeholders have over a project. It can be exercised by controlling the decision-making process directly and by facilitating or hindering the project's implementation. This control may come from a stakeholder's status or power, or from informal connections with leaders. Another variable, that of importance, relates to the degree to which achievement of project objectives depends on the active involvement of a given stakeholder group. Stakeholders who are important to the project are generally those whose needs the project seeks to meet as well as those
whose interests converge with the objectives of the project. Some stakeholders may be very important to a project (for instance, rural women in a reproductive health project) but may have very limited influence over the project. These stakeholders may require special efforts to enable
them to become active participants to ensure that their needs will indeed be met. Both the influence and importance of different stakeholder groups can be ranked along simple scales, and mapped against each other, as an initial step in determining appropriate strategies for their involvement. Both variables can be assessed in a preliminary manner based on the knowledge of those familiar with the stakeholders concerned. More in-depth assessments of importance and influence would require direct consultations (for instance, to ask local-level stakeholders for their reactions to a proposed intervention).

Step 4. Outline a Stakeholder Participation Strategy

Plan stakeholder involvement according to:

• interests, importance, and influence of each stakeholder
  group
• particular efforts needed to involve important stakeholders who lack
  influence
• appropriate forms of participation throughout the project cycle.

On the basis of the previous three steps in the Stakeholder Analysis process, some preliminary planning can be done on how the different stakeholder groups can best be involved in subsequent stages of the project or ESW. As a rule of thumb, the appropriate approaches for involving stakeholders of differing levels of influence and importance can be as follows:

• stakeholders of high influence and high importance should be closely involved throughout to ensure their support for the project or ESW;
• stakeholders of high influence and low importance are not the target of the project but may oppose the intervention; therefore, they will need, as appropriate, to be kept informed and their views acknowledged to avoid disruption or conflict;
• stakeholders of low influence and high importance require special efforts to ensure that their needs are met and their participation is meaningful; and
• stakeholders of low influence and low importance are unlikely to be closely involved in the project and require no special participation strategies (beyond any information-sharing strategies aimed at the "general public").

Methods for Stakeholder Analysis

• Best done in collaboration with key stakeholder groups;
• Not only desk study-use participatory methods where possible:
  • stakeholder workshops,
  • local consultations,
  • participatory analysis; and
• Use secondary data where available and reliable.

While it may be possible for World Bank staff to undertake a preliminary Stakeholder Analysis based on their own knowledge of the project or ESW and the relevant stakeholders, the process will be much enhanced and the learning shared if other groups are involved. Representatives of the main collaborating institutions (government agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, and others) can often provide detailed information on the in-country stakeholders. Bringing these collaborating groups together for the Stakeholder Analysis will also provide an opportunity for them to discuss, and hopefully agree on, which stakeholders should be involved and how.

However, in some cases the Stakeholder Analysis will involve the identification and discussion of sensitive information (such as the hidden agendas of certain stakeholder groups, or why certain groups are likely to oppose the project), which are often more likely to surface in more private
settings with individual stakeholder groups.

In addition to reviewing secondary data and meeting with selected stakeholders, several other more participatory techniques can be used to gather information. The use of participatory approaches in a Stakeholder Analysis also builds a sense of ownership in the work by a broader range of stakeholders. Stakeholder workshops are particularly useful at the beginning of the process to generate a complete listing of stakeholder groups, and in the final stages of the analytical work to build consensus on a participation strategy for the key stakeholders. Consultations and participatory analyses (using some of the techniques of Participatory Rural Appraisal, SARAR, or Beneficiary Assessment, for example) with those stakeholders about whom less is known (usually those with less influence) are often a major component of Stakeholder Analysis.

Stakeholder Analysis
Why do Stakeholder Analysis?

• To identify stakeholders' interests in, importance to, and influence over the operation;
• To identify local institutions and processes upon which to build; and
• To provide a foundation and strategy for participation.

Stakelolder Analysis
What is a stakeholder?

"Stakeholders are people, groups, or institutions which are likely to be affected by a proposed intervention (either negatively or positively), or those which can affect the outcome of the intervention." Stakeholders include:

• The Borrower
• The Poor
• Other Affected Groups
• Interested Groups

Stakeholder Analysis can be undertaken in a variety of ways, depending on the degree to which stakeholders have already been identified and plans for their participation developed. In situations where much is known about the different stakeholder groups, their relationships with each other, and appropriate strategies for their participation, it may not be necessary to conduct a full-blown Stakeholder Analysis. A simpler format may be sufficient, with the task manager doing the bulk of the Stakeholder Analysis based on his or her knowledge of the stakeholders and the project. This preliminary analysis can then be expanded and cross-checked by talking with some of the stakeholders involved and by holding brief workshops with in-country counterparts to focus on developing and reaching consensus on participation strategies for the stakeholder groups identified.

Conversely, where little is known about potential stakeholders and how they will affect and be affected by the project, a more in-depth analysis and a more participatory process will be required. Stakeholder Analysis in this case is best done in the field, together with the policy or project development team. This is particularly important where the project is likely to have an impact on "new," or where there is a good deal of controversy and conflict involved. Stakeholder analyses in these situations will generally require extensive use of participatory consultation techniques to understand the perspectives and concerns of the different groups involved, and careful
management of a series of workshops where representatives of the stakeholder groups identified can come together to look for common ground and discuss ways in which their participation could be "built-in" to the project.

How to do a Stakeholder Analysis will also depend on the point at which the analysis is done in the project cycle. If done at an early stage, the analysis will probably enable more learning and more systematic use of a range of techniques. Stakeholder Analysis done at a later stage may be more limited in both its scope and use of consultative or participatory techniques.

For more information on guidance on working with a set of matrices and convening stakeholder, please visit www.worldbank.org.

Stakeholder Workshops
In general, workshops are more suited to engaging the more powerful and articulate groups of stakeholders. Meaningful participation of community members and other local-level stakeholders is rarely achieved without special preparatory arrangements and careful facilitation. Two options exist for ensuring the views of these less powerful stakeholders are taken into account. The first option involves holding a number of local-level workshops to hear the views and concerns of stakeholders at this level, and then feeding the findings and recommendations from these workshops into a national-level workshop. This process can be reinforced by inviting representatives from the local-level workshops to give brief presentations at the national level forum. Alternatively, a national-level stakeholder workshop can be informed by the results of earlier participatory consultations and analyses that were undertaken at the community level to elicit the views of the local people. Again, representatives from the teams who visited the communities, or community members who were involved, can be invited to the national-level workshop to reinforce the feedback process. When used for the purposes of Stakeholder Analysis, workshops have proven a particularly powerful technique for generating a sense of ownership among the different stakeholders involved, and for breaking down institutional and hierarchical barriers to enable stakeholders to collaborate effectively. The forums can therefore serve to set in motion a participation process that is based on individual stakeholders having a shared understanding of each others' interests and concerns. This "process outcome" is important even (and, indeed, perhaps especially) in cases where conflicts among the stakeholders may remain unresolved.

Stakeholder Workshop Tips

• Enlist the help of a trained workshop designer and facilitator.
• Plan a series of linked workshops of different sizes, compositions, and locations (for example, a number of smaller workshops at the local level that feed into a subsequent national-level workshop).
  
• Organize and manage a committed core team to provide oversight and impetus to the process-for example a task manager, key lead agency staff, beneficiary representative, and consultant facilitator.
  
• Ensure that all key stakeholder groups participate over the course of the workshop, including the powerful, the poor, the reluctant actors, the marginal groups, the interested observers, and the enthusiastic supporters.
• Ensure that groups with special needs (such as women's groups, illiterate stakeholders) are given voice through special arrangements.
  
• Choose the appropriate workshop techniques for undertaking a Stakeholder Analysis with the participants.

“This information, in part or in whole, was taken from www.worldbank.org