Water Services Trust Fund Financial Support for Improved Access to Water and Sanitation UPC Projects: COMMUNICATING WITH STAKEHOLDERS

1. Identify Your stakeholders: Engaging the right people in the right way => project success Stakeholder: any person affected by your work, have influence or power over it, or have interest in its success or unsuccessful result Can be both organisations and people but ultimately you can only communicate with individuals so choose these individuals carefully 2

2. Prioritise Your stakeholders: You could make a long list of many people who are affected by your work and some of these people may have power to block or advance it You will need to map them out and classify them by their power over your work and their interest in your work 3

Working with stakeholders: Some examples High power, interested people: must fully engage with them and make greatest effort to satisfy them (WSTF, WSB & WSP) High power, less interested people: put enough work with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much to keep them bored ( Chiefs, gatekeepers) 4

Working with stakeholders: Some examples (cont’d) Low power, interested people: keep these people adequately informed and talk to them to ensure no major issues are arising. Can be very helpful in providing details of your project (CBOs, NGOs) Low power, less interested people: monitor these people 5

Understanding your key stakeholders: You need to know more about them How will they perceive, or are they interpreting our project? How they are expected to respond to our project? Will they turn a project for the community into their own private project? (project and private interests) Know how to engage them? Turning skeptics into participants How to communicate with them? Communication is key to success? 6

Key questions regarding stakeholders: In addition to identifying stakeholders you should also try to map their main interests What professional, financial, political, social or even emotional interest do they have in (the outcome of) our project? Is it positive or negative? What motivates the various stakeholders you have identified? What information do they want from you? How do they want to receive the information from you? 7

Key questions Regarding stakeholders (cont’d): What is the best way to relay information to your stakeholders (one-to-one, organising a meeting, organising a Baraza, writing a report, SMS, phone call, ?) Who tends to influence the opinions of your stakeholders? Who tends to influence the opinions that exist about you and/or your work? Should then, opinion-makers be regarded as stakeholders in their own right? How to deal with negative views regarding the WSP, the project and your work? How to win the support of critics...and make use of constructive criticism? If you can’t win them then how will you manage their opposition? 8

Thank You! 9