Engaging Stakeholders to Influence Policy
Dr Jenny Proimos
Dept of Education and Early Childhood
Development, Melbourne, Australia
ICP August 2013
Who are stakeholders?
• “a person with an interest or concern in something,
especially a business”
• [as modifier] “denoting a type of organization or
system in which all the members or participants
are seen as having an interest in its success”
– Oxford Dictionary
What is policy?
• “a course or principle of action adopted or proposed
by an organization or individual”
– Oxford Dictionary
• Origin:
– Late Middle English: from Old French policie 'civil
administration', via Latin from Greek politeia
'citizenship', from politēs 'citizen', from polis 'city'
Benefits of Stakeholder engagement
• Benefits for Government
– Higher quality decision-making
– Increased efficiency in and effectiveness of service delivery
– Improved risk management practices – allowing risks to be
identified and considered earlier, and reducing future costs
– Streamlined policy and program development processes
– Greater engagement with stakeholder interests – ensuring
services are delivered in collaboration with stakeholders and
provide outcomes which meet community needs
– Enhanced community confidence in projects undertaken
– Enhanced capacity to innovate
Benefits of Stakeholder Engagement
• Benefits for Stakeholders
– Greater opportunity to contribute directly to policy and
program development
– More open and transparent lines of communication
• Increasing the accountability of government and driving
innovation
– Improved access to decision-making processes,
resulting in more efficient and responsive services
– Early identification of synergies between stakeholder
and government work, encouraging integrated and
comprehensive solutions to complex policy issues
Inform
Consult
Involve
Collaborate
Empower
Provide balanced, objective,
accurate and consistent
information to assist
stakeholders to understand the
problem, alternatives,
opportunities and/or solutions
Obtain feedback
from stakeholders
on analysis,
alternatives and/or
outcomes
Work directly with
stakeholders
throughout the
process to ensure
their needs are
understood and
considered.
Partner with
stakeholders
including the
development of
alternatives,
making decisions
and identification
of preferred
solutions
Place final
decision-making in
the hands of the
stakeholder.
We will keep you informed
We will listen and
acknowledge your
concerns and
aspirations and
provide feedback
on how
stakeholder input
influenced the
outcome
We will work with
you to ensure that
your concerns and
aspirations are
directly reflected in
the alternatives
developed
We will look to you
for advice and
innovation in
formulating
solutions and
incorporate your
advice and
recommendations
into the outcomes
to the maximum
extent possible
We will implement
what you decide.
We will support
and complement
your actions
• Fact sheets
• Newsletters, Bulletins,
circulars
• Websites
•
•
•
•
• Reference
groups
• Experimental
projects
• Facilitated
consensus
forums
• Dialogue with
government
• Local
governance
• Joint planning
• Shared projects
Mehtods of
engagement
Promise to stakeholders
Stakeholder
engagement goals
Levels of participation in stakeholder engagement
Public comment • Workshops
Focus groups
• Deliberate
Surveys
polling
Public meetings • Forums
Six policy lessons: Lesson One
• Policy processes are complex and rarely
logical or linear
– Simply presenting information to policy makers and
expecting them to act upon it is unlikely to work
– “the whole life of policy as a chaos of purposes and
accidents”
• Clay and Schaeffer – Room for Manoeuvre, 1984.
– “iterative, continuous, incremental, subject to review
and inherently political”
• Lin and Gibson, 2003.
The relationship between evidence and
policy
Linearity:
Problem
Evidence
(solutions)
“Evidencebased” decision
making
Policy action
…“useful for policy makers and practitioners”
The evolution of research evidence
Descriptive research
RCTs
Cost effectiveness
Outcome and
economic evaluations
New ground breaking research
Values
Situational crisis
Election looming
Media pressure
Resources
Timing
Stakeholder views
Political will
RCTs do not answer all of the questions
Parachutes reduce the risk of
injury after gravitational
challenge, but their effectiveness
has never been proved with
randomised controlled trials
(Smith GCS and Pell JP, BMJ 2003)
Six Policy Lessons: Lesson Two
• Many policy processes are only weakly informed by the
research-based evidence
– Because of the 5 Ss:
• Speed
• Superficiality
• Spin
• Secrecy
• Scientific Ignorance
• Policy-makers are more heavily influenced by
•
•
•
•
Own values and experiences
Own expertise and judgement
Lobbyists and pressure groups
Pragmatism
Six Policy Lessons: Lesson Three
• Research-based evidence can contribute
to policies that can have a dramatic
impact on lives
Six Policy Lessons: Lesson Four
• Stakeholders (or policy enterpreneurs) need a holistic
understanding of the context in which they are working
and seeking to influence policy
– External influences
– Political context
– Evidence : type, quality, generalisability,
contestability, how it is communicated
– Other influences: other actors, mechanisms in the
same space
Six Policy Lessons: Lesson Five
• Stakeholders need to have additional
skills to influence policy
– Good storytellers
– Understand the political landscape and who are
the political players
– Good networkers
– Work in multidisciplinary teams to gather the
right skills
Six Policy Lessons: Lesson Six
• Stakeholders need to have a clear intentreally want to influence policy
– May need reorientation of research focus
– Develop a research agenda based on policyrelevant work
– Need to focus on communication skills
– Different range of outputs might be needed
• Not just academic papers
The role of research evidence in policy
making
• Increased likelihood of research being used by
policymakers:
– Interaction between researchers and policymakers
– Good timing and timely research
– Policy networks and trust in researchers
• Decreased likelihood of research being used by
policymakers:
– Policymakers’ negative attitude towards research evidence
– Policymakers’ lack of skills and expertise
– A lack of perceived relevance, use of jargon, and academic
publications aimed at an academic audience
Researchers vs Policymakers
• Researchers and Policymakers often have
very different views of what constitutes good
research evidence!
The hierarchy of utility of research evidence
Evidence
briefs
Systematic
reviews of
research
Applied Research
studies, articles,
reports etc
Methodological, theoretical,
basic research
J. Lavis – McMaster University
Evidence is not just research-based
• Research
• Knowledge and information
– Consultations
– Internet
– Published documents/reports
• Ideas and Interests
– Opinion and views
• Politics
– Agenda of the prevailing government
– Opportunity
– Crises
• Economics
– Cost effectiveness
– Opportunity costs
Questions for people/organisations seeking
to influence policy
•
•
•
•
What is your key message with relevance for policy?
Why is this important for policy?
Who has the power to make a difference?
When do you need to engage these different
stakeholders?
– Upstream dialogue vs downstream response
• Where do you engage?
– You need to go to where the policymakers are
• How do you engage?
– Press releases, reports, social media
– Policy briefs
– Seminars, workshops, briefings
Policy Briefs
• Address a high-priority issue and describe the relevant
context of the issue being addressed: system
relevance
• Describe the problem, costs and consequences of
options to address the problem
• Describe the key implementation issues
• Employ systematic and transparent methods to identify,
select, and assess synthesised research evidence:
scientific quality
• Address quality, local applicability and equity issues
• Use a graded-entry format (1,3,25 pager)
Policy dialogues
• Interactive knowledge-sharing mechanism
• Policymakers recognise:
– The importance of research evidence
– The need to consider evidence alongside other
influences
– Stakeholders can actually add significant value
efficiently
– Stakeholders can also take action to address highpriority issues
Policy dialogues
• Increase the interactions between researchers,
other stakeholder and policymakers
• Are able to provide interpretation of research
evidence in a timely manner (ie. To address a
high-priority issue)
• Real-time identification of accord between
research evidence and beliefs, values, interests, or
political goals of the policymakers
Policy dialogues need to…
• Address a high-priority issue
• Provide opportunities to discuss the problem, options to
address the problem, and key implementation issues
• Be informed by a pre-meeting policy brief and
discussion of factors that can influence the
policymaking process
• Ensure fair representation of those who are likely to be
influenced by the policy
• Engage a facilitator who is neutral, and doesn’t need to
aim for consensus
• Result in a range of activities designed to contribute to
the policy agenda
The art of influence:
the role of the knowledge-broker
Creating Public Value: The Strategic Triangle
Authorising
Environment
Public
Value
Operational
Capabilities
Mark Moore: Harvard University
The knowledge broker sphere of influence
Adapted by Goldfeld from Kingdon (1995) and Moore (2007)
KB
Recognition of the
problem=data
CAPABILITY
PUBLIC
VALUE
KB
KB
Policy based
solution=evidence
KB
Political will
AUTHORITY
Kingdon, J 1995, Agendas, alternatives and public policies, 2nd edn, Harper Collins College, New York.
Moore, M 2007, Creating public value: strategic management in government, 2nd edn, Harvard University, Cambridge.
Policy window
opens-decision
making possible
“Everything should be
made as simple
as possible, but not
simpler”
Albert Einstein