Overview

Stakeholders are key to project success. For mono-functional, traditional hydraulic infrastructure, the key stakeholder is the proponent or developer of the infrastructure service. However, Building with Nature focuses on multi-functionality and context-specificness, making that it can rarely be implemented by a single party. Active stakeholder engagement is required as Building with Nature relies on inputs of and creates outputs for multiple stakeholders and their functions within the system context. This also makes that financing and decision-making could cross institutional sectors and players. Moreover, local involvement of community and stakeholders is critical as they will benefit from the solutions once implemented , and sometimes even maintain them. Without community support and involvement, Building with Nature cannot be successful.

How to organize this critical multi-stakeholder approach? Within this enabler section practical guidance is provided. Attention is paid to stakeholder analysis, stakeholder participation and coalition building. Stakeholder analysis relates to different ways of identifying and understanding the stakeholder setting. Stakeholder analysis involves identification, assessment, categorization and modelling stakeholder interaction. Stakeholder participation and coalition building involves develpment and startting a multi-stakeholder process, organizing a stakeholder engagement and setting-up meetings. Specific attention is paid to coalition building, as this type of engagement ‘co-deciding’ is particularly appropriate in Building with Nature. Only joint action can lead to implementation. A range of frameworks, models and tools is presented to support a multi-stakeholder approach.