Brief 4- Multi-Stakeholder Platforms
Rationale
Practical strategies for implementing Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) have been shown to work. These work best when they address the needs of nature in combination with social and economic development. They require changes from traditional ‘top-down’ water management. Practical strategies overcome lack of coordination among sectors and disjointed planning that can otherwise easily result in unnecessary expenditure and large infrastructure that fails to provide expected results, at the expense of natural ecosystems.
1. How to identify stakeholders? What are the key entry points for stakeholder participation in GEF IW operations?
Key concepts & skills: • Stakeholder analysis • Understanding stakeholder participation • Iterative consultation and informed participation • The benefits and costs of consultation and participation • Indigenous peoples and gender considerations in consultation
2. How to engage stakeholders constructively? What are the elements of a good process?
Key concepts & skills: • Multi-Stakeholder Platforms (MSP) • Credible and competent conveners • Appropriate scale, levels and resources • Political support and recognition of power • Deliberation, facilitation, inclusion, information and communication • Social contract between participants • Deliberation support tools such as scenarios
3. How to build consensus? How to resolve conlfict over shared waters?
Key concepts & skills: • Convening – getting the right parties to the table • Clarifying responsibilities – roles, agenda, ground rules • Deliberating – joint investigations, discussions, learning • Negotiating and implementing fairer and effective agreements • Organizational learning, adaptive management and capacity building
4. How to adapt IWRM principles to on-the-ground and institutional realities through work with stakeholders?
How to complement planning with demonstration projects? Key concepts & skills: • IWRM uses a two-track strategy where planning is complemented by pilot actions demonstrating results that address local to national priorities • Learning-by-doing innovates and adapts water resources management actions, tools and technologies • Concrete results and lessons learned build confidence and anchor basin and national policies and planning in knowledge of what works • Coalitions of beneficiaries, water advocates and leaders join forces within political realities catalyze change in institutions that enable practical implementation of IWRM
5. How to enhance partner and stakeholder engagement in demonstration project delivery, including by the private sector?
Key concepts & skills: • Value proposition • Reduce costs associated with risk exposure • Engage communities on improved water stewardship • Public-private partnerships and corporate environmental performance targets • Leverage and influence supply chains • Maximize the political and economic situation in the region • The notion of “shared problem solving”
