Decision making with multiple stakeholder groups (Task 3.2)
Different social groups in society often have diverse views about which outcomes are desirable and which trade-offs are acceptable. One group may be interested in the value of the production of commodities and another may be more interested in conserving biodiversity. Reaching decisions that are acceptable to all stakeholders is a complex process.
Top-down decisions may be easy to formulate but if they ignore different stakeholder groups they are likely to fail in the long term. Efforts to reach a consensus from the bottom up, which require participatory processes and the involvement of all stakeholder groups, are more difficult. However, the solutions from this process are more likely to persist in the long term.
The following factors need to be examined:
▪ the dynamics of stakeholder groups
▪ criteria used to decide who participates and who makes the decisions
▪ what is the best practice for building consensus
▪ how the success or failure of the participatory process differs at international through to local scales. |
