Designing more effective participatory decision-making processes

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What makes stakeholder participation in environmental management work?

Designing more effective participatory

decision-making processes

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What makes stakeholder participation

in environmental management work?

Participation: frustrating...

... yet alluring

Barriers to participation

Practical: lack of time, money, skills

Stakeholder fatigue, apathy based on negative former experiences

Fear of losing control, unwanted/biased outcomes

World view (or epistemology):

• Reductionists, in search of universal truth, find it hard to value local knowledge and multiple perspectives

• If you know what’s right, why consult?

• Often related to disciplinary background, but more about the way people construct & perceive knowledge

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Barriers to participation

Practical: lack of time, money, skills

Stakeholder fatigue, apathy based on negative former experiences

Fear of losing control, unwanted/biased outcomes

World view (or epistemology):

• Reductionists, in search of universal truth, find it hard to value local knowledge and multiple perspectives

• If you know what’s right, why consult?

• Often related to disciplinary background, but more about the way people construct & perceive knowledge

Incre

asin

gly

tra

cta

ble

Overcoming barriers

Deeper issues may take generations to change

But most of these are tractable issues

Practical – we can make time/money and good

practice skills available

Stakeholder scepticism: replacing bad with good

practice, negative with positive experiences

Decision-maker scepticism: good practice can set

boundaries (avoid raising false expectations via

participation if no alternatives) and minimise bias

The key: identifying, spreading and facilitating

good practice

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How can we design participatory processes that

effectively engage stakeholders in policy decisions?

How can we harness participation to achieve social and environmental benefits, but avoid the pitfalls?

Plan

1. Context: the Ecosystems Approach, big society

& the Natural Environment White Paper

2. What can the literature tell us?

3. Preliminary findings from ongoing research

1. Context

Ecosystem Approach

A strategy for integrated management of land,

water & living resources that promotes cons-

ervation & sustainable use in an equitable way

Emphasises

Decentralising environmental management

Inclusive stakeholder participation

Capturing/valuing local knowledge

Learning by doing (“adaptive management”)

Ecosystem Approach

Much in common with localism & “big society”

Echoed in Natural Environment White Paper

Local Nature Partnerships & Natural Value

Ambassadors

Public-private partnerships to establish Nature

Improvement Areas & Payments for Nature’s Services

Ecosystem Approach

To apply the Ecosystem Approach in real-life

decision-making, we need to know what works

best when working with stakeholders

How can we effectively adapt our practice to different

contexts and purposes?

What do we know are the key elements of a

successful participatory process, regardless of

context?

2. What can the literature tell us?

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1. Start talking to people as soon as you can

• From concept to completion

• Early involvement leads to higher quality and more durable decisions

• Avoid raising false expectations: make sure there’s something to negotiate

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2. Make sure you’re talking to the right people

• The nature and legitimacy of outcomes is significantly affected by participant mix

• Lots of methods available now for “stakeholder analysis”

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• Design the process to the goals

• Identify goals with stakeholders

• Be prepared to negotiate and compromise

• Partnerships, ownership and active engagement in the process is more likely

3. Make sure you know what people want to talk about

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4. Be flexible: base level of participation & methods on your context & objectives

• Communicate e.g. information dissemination via leaflets or the mass media, hotlines and public meetings

• Consulte.g. consultation documents, opinion polls and referendums, focus groups and surveys

• Participate e.g. citizen’s juries, consensus conferences, task-forces and public meetings with voting

• Tailor your methods to context

• Manage power

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5. Get a facilitator

• The outcome of a participatory process is more sensitive to the manner in which it is conducted than the tools that are used

• Don’t underestimate the power of investing in a good facilitator to bring people together and deliver high quality outcomes

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6. Put local and scientific knowledge on an equal footing

• Science can help people make more informed decisions

• Local knowledge can question assumptions, and perhaps lead to more rigorous science

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• Decisions based on a combination of local and scientific knowledge may by more robust due to more comprehensive information inputs

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3. Preliminary findings from ongoing work

Four ongoing paired projects

Environmental Consequences of Participatory

Governance (ECOPAG): a comparative meta-

analysis of 300 OECD case studies in

environmental decision-making (Jens Newig)

Involved: in-depth interviews with those who led

and participated in environmental management

projects/programmes in Spain & Portugal

Four ongoing paired projects

Sustainable Uplands and Ecocycles: interviews

& Social Network Analysis of knowledge

exchange processes across UK uplands &

catchment management projects

One Goal

To help people design participatory and

knowledge exchange processes that are more

likely to deliver the outcomes people want, by

understanding why different approaches work in

different contexts

Questions (1)

Does participatory environmental governance –

as opposed to more hierarchical, top-down

approaches:

Improve the quality of decisions or policies, facilitate

their implementation and thus achieve environmental

goals more swiftly and effectively?

Benefit participants in other ways linked to the

process e.g. learning, trust etc., and achieve their

stated goals (whether related to the environment or

not)?

Questions (2)

Which contextual factors and which modes of

participation affect the outcomes of participatory

processes?

More broadly, what are the barriers and factors

that facilitate knowledge exchange (whether via

participation or not)?

How is knowledge transformed as it travels through

peer-to-peer networks?

What gets into policy and practice, and why?

Emerging lessons

Low participation create simple solutions: easily implemented and accepted but perhaps ineffective

High levels of participation may lead to deeper

understanding, learning and more complex solutions: more effective but harder to apply

Policy makers with actual decision-making power,

need to be in the process for short-term impact

Can create power imbalance that limits active participation & generation of new ideas, but if not

part of process, implementation less likely

Emerging lessons

With participation of land managers:

Outcomes may be more economically/practically feasible

More social benefits (learning, trust etc.)

Outcomes more likely to be implemented in longer term

To get their participation, process needs to come to

them and communication tailored appropriately

No quantitative evidence from first 47 ECOPAG cases

that participation leads to more beneficial

environmental outcomes

Group composition strongly influences outcome, so

initial stakeholder analysis is important to get right

Conclusion

Good practice is emerging and the evidence

base is growing

Need to continue sharing our experience and

learning from each other

Key lessons in your handout