STAKEHOLDER'S INVOLVEMENT

Stakeholder's Involvement



Stakeholder's Involvement

Introduction

Stakeholders must play a crucial role in setting up priorities and objectives of water and sanitation initiatives in order to ensure relevance and appropriateness. It is important that all stakeholders are involved in the development of projects and not just direct beneficiaries of an initiative. When planning a strategy on which stakeholders to involve into the decision making process and how to communicate, cooperate and associate with them, it is worthwhile to find out more about the stakeholder characteristics. This will later on help to attribute roles and responsibilities to different stakeholders so that the implementation is successful and so that no conflicts arise between the stakeholders. Firstly, the degree of importance of the stakeholders is analyzed, i.e., the degree how much somebody is concerned by an initiative. Importance means the priority given to satisfying stakeholders' needs and interests from being involved in the design of the project and in the project itself in order for it to be successful. In other words, this is about how important or essential is it that certain stakeholders are involved.

Pass

The stakeholders in non-profit organizations are

Donors

Direct Sponsors

Supporters

Corporate Sponsors

Volunteers

Members

Clients / Beneficiaries

Office Staff

Field Workers

Board

Whereas the stakeholders for a Private company can be:

The owner/The Shareholders

The Customers

The Employees

The Suppliers

The Community

The Government

Vendors

Employees

Managerial committees

In short, any one has any link with the company can be the stakeholders for the company.

Merit

Participatory planning requires the involvement of concerned stakeholders. This includes identifying public concerns and values and developing a broad consensus on planned initiatives. It is also about utilising the vast amount of information and knowledge that stakeholders hold to find workable, efficient and sustainable solutions (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). The stakeholder analysis is the process of identifying and analysing stakeholders, and plan for their participation (Clarkson, 1998). There are a great number of methodologies concerning stakeholder analysis with a wide range of complexity (Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics, 1999). Here, we present a four-step methodology, that can be done fully or shortened according to one's needs: (1) Stakeholder identification, (2) Stakeholders' importance and influence (3) Stakeholder interests and (4) Stakeholder strategy plan. After identification, the next step is about analysing how important it is that certain stakeholders are involved, and about the degree of influence and power a stakeholder has to affect the outcome of an initiative.

Stakeholders must play a crucial role in setting up priorities and objectives of water and sanitation initiatives in order to ensure relevance and appropriateness. It is important that all stakeholders are involved in the development of projects and not just direct beneficiaries of an initiative (Donaldson & Preston, 2008). When planning a strategy on which stakeholders to involve into the decision making process and how to communicate, cooperate and associate with them, it is worthwhile to find out more about the stakeholder characteristics. This will later on help to attribute roles and responsibilities to different stakeholders so that the implementation is successful and so that no conflicts arise between the stakeholders.

Firstly, the degree of importance of the stakeholders is ...