Micky Hingorani
Forum Replies Created
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I DISAGREE, since not necessarily all local stakeholders will be high priority ones, and as mentioned by Philister, in some cases consensus might be just out of reach. On the other hand, if resistance came from local stakeholders which were *also* high priority ones (quadrant 1 from GPP Blueprint), then I would agree.
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I guess that would depend heavily on two things: first, the stakeholder priority; second, wheter its impact will be positive or negative. That is not to say, of course, that relationship with “negative” stakeholders should be neglected – on the contrary, if such stakeholders are high on the priority list, the relationship should be even better. But the approach might be entirely different. For instance, in our brazilian context, some conservative institutions such as pentecostal churches have enourmous political influence. If it turns out that such institutions need to be engaged, the relationship would be, of course, completely different than the one with, let’s say, an LGBT NGO.
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Philister
I DISAGREE, since not all stakeholders will approve the existence of an intervention or trial, it is very hard to obtain consensus from all the stakeholders and that is why the engagement process is a continuous process, you have to address past outcry of research which your intervention has nothing to do with but you have to explain if a specific stakeholder is uncomfortable because of that.Cultural beliefs may make some people hesitant to accept an intervention but once they understand what the trial is ll about they would accept it, for example the conspiracy theories on HIV/AIDS will always live with us that HIV was manufacture by whites and they have the drug which they are hiding as much as we have people who believe in it so much others still accept trials to go on as we continue explaining to others who have not understood.
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Philister
Maintaining lasting and trustworthy relationship with stakeholders is crucial for the success of any trial therefore we have to identify stakeholders, engage and involve them in the lifecycle of the trial, partner, the partnership must be true with action through informing them what the trial entails as they consider to be involved thus we have to review this process which stakeholder is more influential and ensure they do not override the research purpose but let the other stakeholders equally participate and have their space without intimidation from the most powerful stakeholder, those who might be considered of low influence may have a lot of impact perhaps they are silent because of dominant forces if encouraged they can make a significant contribution thus the importance of reviewing the process and ensure others do not fall out. The importance of stakeholders various depending on their interest,influence and investment at a specific time point. -
I AGREE with the statement given above.
Stakeholders are very important in the whole process of implementing any research project whether research study or intervention; if they refuse and decide not to cooperate then it is obvious that the intervention would not be done. Stakeholders are the ones who have people (participants at their back) they know the culture of their people, they know their language, they know their interest, they know their geographic boundaries etc. Therefore, if they see that in a certain research project or intervention there is people’s interest and that the study is not against people’s culture then it is possible for them to allow the study to continue in their area, but if they see that the study is against their people’s culture then they won’t allow a study or intervention to take place in their area.For example, Recently, in my country (Tanzania) there was an introduction of a new intervention which aimed at reducing more transmission of HIV/AIDS to men who have sex with men, in this intervention program there was a product which was being given to participants (Lubricants/ K-Y jelly) but from the ministry of health and the support of political leaders in different parts of the country, the intervention was stopped with a reason that it is not cultural to do sex among men themselves (MSM is not allowed in Tanzania) it is against the culture and the law.
Therefore, from the statement above it is true that (any) research should only go forward if all local stakeholders want the intervention in their area.
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The formative research it is a crucial tool that would help to determine the type of relationship that we are seeking in each stakeholder.
Each stakeholder has a different importance, the team discuss and evaluate the importance for each goal, objective and activity defined in the plan.
We also have to evaluate the stakeholder time available for what we propose in the plan. -
Dear Friends,
In one of my past professional roles, I use to facilitate and moderate an online knowledge management platform called ‘Solution Exchange’ supported by the United Country Team (UNCT). Basically it offered a low-cost platform for practitioners and community members to share knowledge – including experiential knowledge or tacit knowledge – towards the aim of collaborative knowledge building. Looking back to my experiences those days, now that I am learning about GPP, I realize some members had actually used the platform for informal formative research. [Please see below one example of a query that I recovered from google cache as the original site is currently down.]
The general pattern is that people post specific questions and then there is a moderated and structured discussion for around 2-3 weeks, on the forum which involved a email list-serve predominantly and a web-based platform. The platform had around 4000+ members working on different aspects of the AIDS response and also offered offered a good representation across geography, gender, sectors etc.As such each topic generated a significantly rich body of knowledge. Apart from sharing of experiences and published resources by members, the platform also allowed for members to outreach, network with and establish newer contacts for further information gathering. Technology did enable the platform in reaching stakeholders on a large-scale that too at much lesser cost. One challenge was the divide between haves and have-nots in terms of Information Technology (IT). We tried to address this as much as possible by at times giving phone calls to members whom we thought have experience in a particular area and then transcribed what they had to see and share back with the larger community. This way, some memebrs felt more comfortable as they were able to speak in their local language in some cases and overcome another barrier, that of language. We also got feedback from some community based organisations that they use to take contents from the platform to the next mile by pasting printouts on their bulletin boards and discussing issues in their face to face meetings.
With best regards,
Nabeel-
Thanks for the input, Nabeel. As a fellow IT professional I’m always pleased to see our area being so well employed. 🙂
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Stakeholder mapping answers the question of which type of relationship to seek with each stakeholder. It all comes out clearly after doing a thorough stakeholder mapping job which will point out clearly who needs to be involved at what level and their role.
Deciding to involve one stakeholder versus another can be done through stakeholder mapping again. If all the different stakeholders are plotted in a matrix/graph plotting influence/power against interest, it becomes crystal clear who should be involved and who to leave out.
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A clear understanding of their professional culture, and their operational system.
Timeous interaction with them.
Their level of interest and how they want to be involved. Determining their importance will vary Trial by Trial. -
The starting point should be to spend time with the stakeholders and learn the culture, document their views and needs as this could be the best way to show interest as well as paving a way for clarity seeking concerns. Stakeholder relationship on the other should be informed by the ability to influence success and the willingness to engage in the trial.
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Hi Andrea,
Good to see your reflections on this and thanks for highlighting that sometimes social media can hinder participation (technology haves and have-nots), while in many cases in can offer a good bridge. Recently, I came across a demonstration of a platform called U-Report, where they are trying to address the above challenge at least partically. U-Report integrates different channels including social media and SMS so as to collect inputs from a large number of stakeholders. I am told that it runs on an open source platform and can easily be deployed and customised. (See one example deployment at the hyperlink provided below) I do agree that the limitation of 140 charecters is indeed a limitation to flow of information and ideas required in formative research. Nevertheless, these tools can be valuable in initial and informal outreach for information gathering. Finally, I am also not forgetting that lack of resources should not be an excuse to not implement GPP, nor to do a shoddy job with it.
With best regards,
Nabeel.Link to U-Report Uganda – http://www.ureport.ug/
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That’s a great point– big groups with ‘power’ can sway the agenda. How do you practically implement sensitivity and ensure that harder-to-reach community members are heard and included?
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Yes roles change. New stakeholders need to be identified and engaged to replace stakeholders who no longer have interest in the project
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What if a stakeholder’s expertise changes over time? Do roles also change?