Stakeholder Importance and Influence

Stakeholders must play a central 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 (see this category on Decision Making section) on which stakeholders to involve into the decision making (see PPT) 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 analysed, 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 (WORLD AGROFORESTRY CENTER 2003).

Secondly, influence and power of a stakeholder can affect the success or failure of an initiative. Power refers to the ability of the stakeholder to affect the implementation of a project due to his or her strength or force (WINDBERG 2009). Power can be important in terms of supporting as well as in terms of constraining an initiative. For the success of an initiative, it is very important know whether (and how) a stakeholder can take action, how he/she can be involved, and how much capacity he/she has to contribute. Concerning failures, it is important know the possible (negative) influence a stakeholder has to constrain or even stop an initiative.

There are different ways answer these questions (depending on the timeframe, e.g.). A short and effective way to categorise stakeholders for their importance and influence is the development of a “stakeholder importance and influence matrix”.

Draw the matrix below on a large flipchart. Write the name of each stakeholder included in the list made already on a separate card or ‘Post-it’ and stick the cards on the matrix according to the participants’ view of each stakeholder’s relative importance and influence (don’t use glue, or it will be difficult to move them around). Don’t worry about locating them exactly, since this is by nature a rather subjective exercise. Once all the cards are in place, stand back and have a look. If necessary, move some of the cards around until a consensus is reached. Then read the comments below about the relevance of each box.

BOX A: This group will require special initiatives to protect their interests.

BOX B: A good working relationship must be created with this group.

BOX C: This group may be a source of risk, and will need careful monitoring and management.

BOX D: This group may have some limited involvement in evaluation but are, relatively, of low priority.

(WORLD AGROFORESTRY CENTER 2003)

Sometimes, it is worth also to further think about the reasons why stakeholders are important and have a certain influence and to keep this recorded. This helps planners not to forget important aspects of different stakeholders and to get a deeper insight of different stakeholder perspectives to better understand them. In particular in SSWM, where stakeholder interests and potential conflicts are often complex and many-sided, it can be worthwhile to take this time to understand stakeholder relations and importance and hence to avoid conflicts and implementation failures.

A simple possibility to develop qualitative information about stakeholder’s importance and influence is to list the main aspects why they are important and can influence the initiative and to add this information to the previously developed stakeholders list.

<----- Go back to Step 1: stakeholder identification

Continue with analysing -----> Step 3: stakeholder interests 

Or see also:

-----> Step 4: stakeholder strategy plan