Enhancing linkages: contributions of the companion moldeling approach to practical IWRM

The companion modeling framework brings together experts (biophysical and social scientists) and local and global knowledge, perceptions and concerns over natural resources by the way of participative modeling supports (role playing games and agent based computerized modeling) that are used during multi-stakeholder platforms (MSP) in two watersheds in Ghana and Burkina Faso. The companion modeling process is used together with a biophysical model (see corresponding abstract VSSe007) to get a "sound" scientific representation of the impacts that local practices can have in space and time. It allows considering multiple points of views (e.g. multi-level and multi stakeholders) about issues, potential solutions and their impacts. A better understanding of possible solutions and their impacts is the first step towards a process of collective decision making to design acceptable water resources practices. Multi-level MSPs allow for actors (from local stakeholders to national policy makers) that do not interact often to confront, be aware and understand each other's views better. The novelty of the project is that the focus is on reinforcing the process of collective decision making rather than on reaching an agreement on a specific issue. This fits well with the multi-faceted nature of IWRM. The approach requires constant stakeholder engagement and trust building at multiple levels and is facilitated by earlier knowledge of the actors and systems studied. (Texte intégral

KatAWARE the game. A rol-playing game to support local multi-stakeholder negotiations around water management in the Kat river valley

This report illustrates a Role Playing Game (RPG), which is being developed within the Water Research Commission (WRC) project "A stakeholder driven process to develop a Catchment Management Plan for the Kat River Valley", hereafter quoted as "the Kat River project". The RPG is called KatAWARE, like the multi-agent model (Farolfi-Bonté, 2005 and 2006) that backs it. The RPG is being developed within an iterative and participatory process called Companion Modelling ¿ ComMod (Farolfi and Rowntree, 2005) aiming at co-constructing the multi-agent model KatAWARE and at the same time facilitating discussions and common decision-making around water management within the Kat River Water Users Association (WUA). The report is organized in four main chapters: the first chapter illustrates the position of the RPG in the ComMod process and its relations with the KatAWARE model; the second chapter looks at the main features of the RPG; the third chapter presents some outcomes of the first RPG session played at Fort Beaufort in November 2005; the last chapter concludes and defines the way forward. (Résumé d'auteur

Proactive stakeholder management in the port planning process: empirical evidence from the Port of Brussels.

Port planning and port management are increasingly influenced by a variety of external stakeholders, each pursuing specific strategic objectives with regard to port activities and port development. A greater focus on external stakeholders may increase the port activities’ legitimacy at the city and regional levels, and may also contribute to sustainable development. In this paper, a new port planning methodology is designed within the context of the development of the Port of Brussels (Belgium) Master plan, time horizon 2015. This new planning methodology describes the port planning process, building upon the decomposition of the total port area in several distinct port objectives were taken into account in this planning process, and how this multi-zone, multi-stakeholder approach can be generalized to improve upon conventional strategic port planning processes. Keywords: Port planning, stakeholder management, evaluation methods

Community Development through Corporate Social Responsibility in Livingston, Zambia: Are Hotels Actually Changing Business Practices?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) presents unique prospects for both local development and valuable business returns for tourism companies. However, optimization of CSR-generated development impacts may largely depend on the willingness of companies to change their corporate practices more. This paper explores CSR practices of hotels and lodges in Livingstone, Zambia, and associated community development impacts of activities they implement in the surrounding Mukuni communities. Findings from research amongst eight hotel and lodge companies, show that where the voluntary process of change of CSR practices was accompanied by multi-stakeholder involvement, which tended to ameliorate adverse power relations, substantial community development benefits were widely captured by communities from CSR initiatives. These findings suggest that in situations where companies willingly incorporate pro-poor approaches in their business practices, multi-stakeholder involvement in CSR might be a plausible approach for ensuring equity and for augmenting the CSR community development impacts

Stakeholder engagement in the city branding process

This paper explores perceptions of stakeholder engagement in the city branding process from the perspective of two post-industrial cities: Sheffield, UK and Essen, Germany. This qualitative research utilises a multi case study approach, which allowed for semi-structure interviews and semiotics to be used. Preliminary findings highlight that there are four stakeholder ‘levels’. Each of these stakeholder groupings is involved in the city branding process to some extend. Findings suggest that the degree of involvement strongly depends on the primary stakeholders, who are seen as key decision-makers in the branding process. These primary stakeholders select other stakeholders that ‘can’ be involved in the branding process. Although this may be beneficial it is vital to provide more opportunities and incorporate stakeholders that are willing to participate in the branding process. Alienating stakeholders may also lead to losing parts of an identity that is based on heritage. The focus is on two cities with a highly industrialised background, thus findings may not be applicable to cities without this heritage. The paper looks at both stakeholder engagement and city branding, thereby proposing four layers of stakeholder involvement in the city branding process

Communities of Change, Multi Stakeholder Processes, Lobby & Advocacy : More than 100 years of experience on HBC in Malawi & Zambia!

This training of four days focussed on two areas of capacity development of the home-based care (HBC) alliance in Malawi and Zambia: 1. Communities of Change (CoC) concept and practice linked to the Multi Stakeholder Process (MSP), and 2. Lobby & Advocacy (L&A). Since June 2010 Cordaid started together with the Centre of Development Innovation (CDI) a learning and development process on the Communities of Change concept and practice linked to the Multi Stakeholder Process with around 75 persons of her staff. In order to share and deepen the development of the COC & MSP concepts and practice further with the partners in the field, Cordaid organised this training. An effective working Alliance/CoC is a condition for effective lobby and advocacy. Therefore the CoC - MSP part of the training was directly linked to the part on lobby and advocacy. The lobby and advocacy trajectory had been started already three years ago with an initial training (also in Malawi) specifically on lobby and advocacy for home based care representatives of eight countries in Africa, amongst other Malawi and Zambia. The current training on lobby and advocacy is therefore also part of the follow up of that process

From Platform to Partnership

Increasingly multi-stakeholder processes are being used in response to complex, „tough‟ or „wicked‟ problems such as responding to climate change, hunger or poverty. This development is also denominated as „engaging stakeholders for change‟ (The Broker, blog January 2011). But there is considerable confusion of terms on what „engaging‟ actually means, let alone that there is clarity on the preconditions under which this engagement can be effective in actually bringing about change. The Partnerships Resource Centre (PrC) focuses on (cross sector) stakeholder partnerships as arguably the most sophisticated way to address wicked problems. But not all multi-stakeholder processes can and should be qualified as partnerships, even when actors denominate their cooperation as a partnership. Not every „dialogue‟ deserves that term, whilst combining partnerships‟ and „dialogues‟ leads to considerable confusion. In practice there is considerable confusion even over basic terminology, which is detrimental to the potential of multi-stakeholder processes to actually address complex problems. Any study on partnerships will thus have to solve a number of terminological problems in order to be relevant. This paper elaborates two dimensions: it argues that the ultimate organizational format (Platform or Partnership) and the actual techniques chosen (normal or strategic stakeholder dialogue) need to be crystal clear. Depending on the nature of the actual problem addressed by the multi-stakeholder process, a partnership or a platform can be equally effective – as long as all participants use the same words, have shared goals and consequently have their expectations aligned. The organization fits the problem

Utilization of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to meet management objectives in fishery industry of the Sea of Oman

This article examines the use of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to choose a priority for different purposes which have been used in fishery optimal management in the Sea of Oman. There are several stakeholder groups in the multi-objective planning methods. In this study, the AHP is used to determine the preferences (weight) of stakeholder groups for each of the objectives in the fisheries industry. This method is a multicriteria analysis system which is suitable for including the inconsistent opinion of different groups involved in the management. Based on the results, biological targets received higher weights compared to other targets with regard to stakeholder groups. Especially, the minimization of bycatch was found to be the most important objective

Enhancing Stakeholder Participation in Urban Mobility Planning: the NISTO Evaluation Framework

Public participation and stakeholder involvement have become core prerequisites of a comprehensive and fair transport planning process. In this paper, we show how the multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) methodology can enhance urban and regional mobility planning and decision-making by considering conflicting stakeholder objectives and helping to identify synergies and disagreement between different stakeholder groups. We suggest the application of MAMCA as part of the NISTO evaluation framework that offers tools to appraise small-scale mobility projects through a toolkit of multi-criteria analysis, MAMCA and target monitoring. MAMCA provides a tool to appraise the preferences of the stakeholders involved or affected by a project. It is based on assessing the evaluation criteria of the different stakeholder groups rather than appraising the project based on a set of common criteria agreed on with all stakeholders at the beginning of the process. Therefore the evaluation shows which implementation alternatives or scenarios each group would prefer and allows for a straightforward comparison of preferences across all stakeholder groups. The application of the MAMCA is demonstrated through the initial results of the evaluation of five demonstration projects in North-West Europe. We show that MAMCA is suitable for a range of mobility projects since it can handle the diversity of stakeholder groups and their objectives. In addition it offers the practitioner a well-structured way of carrying out the whole evaluation process. The application of MAMCA also has the added value of broadening the evaluation process to a wide range of stakeholders instead of limiting it to experts. As opposed to previous approaches, the MAMCA methodology aims to provide a balanced evaluation process where the stakeholders have equal weight, i.e. no priority is given to decision makers, users groups or experts. Our analysis of the process of the identification of stakeholders and their objectives also suggests that there is no generic recipe for the range of stakeholders to be involved in different projects, their objectives and the data that needs to be collected for the evaluation. The MAMCA methodology will be offered to practitioners as a simple-to-use web-based software tool that can collect stakeholder objectives and weights, as well as the input of experts and monitoring data for the evaluation of the alternatives and display the outcome on graphs. Therefore we hope that the tool will improve participation in urban decision-making and evaluation thorough the better integration of diverse stakeholder preferences