What contextual factors might affect efforts to engage stakeholders?

The methods used to engage stakeholders should be appropriate to the context of the engagement.  Understanding the wider context is important to ensure that efforts to inform and engage stakeholders:

• Link with other relevant activities
• Do not duplicate other activities
• Build on previous experience
• Are responsive to stakeholder needs and sensitivities
• Are relevant

Important characteristics of the context should be considered, including the decision-making environment, any relevant history, the characteristics of the stakeholders, and other relevant activities. A consideration of the following factors can help to guide decisions about how best to engage different stakeholders:

• The interest and commitment that key decision-makers have to engage stakeholders
• How the engagement of stakeholders fits within the relevant decision-making system
• Past efforts to address the same problem
• Other relevant past activities that may affect discussions or how the information is perceived such as whether the decision-makers or stakeholders have any previous experience that relates to the option for addressing the problem
• Sections of the public which are unlikely to be engaged but ought to be (e.g. disadvantaged populations)
• Existing relationships between key stakeholders (e.g. antagonism or close alliances), including relationships with potential facilitators and relevant decision-makers
• How much experience key stakeholders have of deliberative processes. Those with more experience, skills and confidence, for example, could dominate the processes. Different processes could be used to mitigate this: stakeholders with more and less experience could attend different breakout sessions, and extra training and support could be given to those with less experience
• The cultural diversity of stakeholders which may affect people’s willingness to meet together, or affect the way they participate in discussions (e.g. those with formal committee experience may expect a chair and formal debating procedures)
• Language (e.g. it may be important to prepare information in different languages or to ensure that the deliberative processes can accommodate different languages)
• Barriers that may affect the way people work together (e.g. the role of gender)
• Other relevant recent, current or planned activities to address the same or related problems and which might affect the feasibility or acceptability of the solutions, or which might engage the same participants. An awareness of such activities can help to ensure that information is shared appropriately, undesirable duplication is avoided, and that the activities and outputs are coordinated, if appropriate

This page was last updated November 2011.