1. Introduction 4. Output
2. Aim 5. Material and preparation
3. Input data 6. Exercise instructions


Introduction

In order for you to take advantage of the opportunities and effectively deal with the challenges related to climate change and to be able to implement your plans, it is necessary to involve key stakeholders. You must think about whom you want to involve, how and why you want to involve them and when to involve them. Stakeholders can provide you with new perspectives, knowledge, experience, influence and are required for their support during decision making and implementation. According to the IPCC (2007a), stakeholder interaction is needed for increased awareness and better decision making regarding climate change. 

Different stakeholders need to be involved and approached differently. While you might want to involve some in your core group to continually provide ideas and manage, others might only need to be involved in certain phases. Some stakeholders simply need to be communicated with to increase their awareness of the issue, as well as increase their level of support. Others can be leveraged for their influence and contacts with other stakeholders. Stakeholder involvement is a process that needs to be actively managed. When receiving input from stakeholders, you should plan on how to incorporate the results of this involvement into your process.

Aim

To identify key stakeholders in your area or sector that you would like to include in the vulnerability assessment process.

Input data

Stakeholder groups

Output

A list of key stakeholders including area of responsibilities and plan for involvement.

Material and preparation

  • Prepare a flipchart paper as in Table 1 below (can be downloaded from the Related files on the right).

Table 1. Mapping the stakeholders 

Name Organization Area of responsibility / Influence Plan for involvement
       
       
       


Exercise instructions

  1. First think about which stakeholders are already involved in the process of conducting this vulnerability assessment. Think about the importance and areas of responsibility of each stakeholder. Fill in the stakeholder list with this information. Make a separate list for each sector if more than one will be focused upon.

  2. In order to determine who you still need to include for each sector, go through the questions listed below and see what other stakeholders come to mind. Ideally, you would like to include stakeholders with a high level of influence on implementing any plans arising from this process. Fill in their details in the list. You can also gather this information at a later date via contact with experts and already identified stakeholders, and by scanning the stakeholder relations of various relevant departments in your organizations.

  3. Once you have identified key stakeholders, you will want to plan activities/actions to contact those who are not already involved in the process to increase their support and involvement in a constructive way. Perhaps not all stakeholders need to be involved in the core group, but it might be beneficial to involve them in some way e.g. they might be sent information and the outcomes of the vulnerability assessment. Think of ways to contact the key stakeholders and make plans of who will contact them and when. Ideas might be to include them in your group meetings simply to inform them of the project, visit different stakeholder organizations or have one on one meetings. 

Some questions that can assist in determining who should be involved and why include (Aaltonen and Kreutz, 2009):

  • What roles do various stakeholders play in the process (authority, role)?
  • Who will participate in the process?
  • Who are the potential beneficiaries?
  • Who will be adversely affected? Are they organized?
  • Who has existing rights? Who has control over resources?
  • Who is likely to be voiceless?
  • Who is likely to mobilize resistance?
  • Who is dependent on whom?
  • Who is responsible for the intended plans?
  • Who has money, skills or key information?
  • Whose behavior has to be changed for success to be reached?
  • What power gaps exist between stakeholder groups? How to deal with them?


Go further to Exercise B - Identification of existing policies and measures