Build Good Relationships

Stakeholder engagement efforts help build good relationships with local communities. It helps the project team learn about the hopes and fears of the various community members, especially in regard to the project. Stakeholders have the ability to influence the success or failure of a project, whether by impacting the permitting process or building up the project's reputation as a “good corporate citizen.”

Transitions

The project will need engagement plans that help to manage transitions between project phases. Transitions can be quite impactful to local communities. For example, project ramp up from scoping to construction is particularly dramatic. There is usually a sharp increase in employees, construction activity, traffic, dust, noise, and other impacts. The reverse is true for transition from construction to operations where there could be job losses and a decrease in the local economy. Preparing key stakeholders for scheduled project transitions is central to avoiding unnecessary concerns or managing the project's impacts on the local community.

Unplanned Changes

New issues will arise during project delivery that can impact stakeholders, such as a project delay or a change in project ownership. The project team should engage with key stakeholders as soon as possible to ensure that the information the stakeholders are receiving is credible and accurate. Second- and third-hand sources can distort the actual situation and create mistrust and uncertainty among stakeholders. Provide as much information as possible and share what you know, and also what you do not know. If the project has been halted but you are uncertain when it will be restarted, say so and then commit to finding out and sharing updates with the stakeholders as you receive them.

Supporting Scoping Studies

Stakeholder engagement is important for specific scoping studies, such as part of the impact assessment, relocation planning, community needs and capacity studies, or economic development planning. The intention of such engagement exercises is to learn as much as possible from local communities in order to develop a good social and environmental plan, relocation plan, or local employment and procurement plans. Be clear with local communities on the purpose of each specific engagement and ensure that they understand why you need to talk with them.

Local Community Groups

Major projects have many and diverse stakeholder groups, from employees and shareholders to media and government. These stakeholders can all impact the project's success or failure. However, from the perspective of integrating sustainability into project delivery, local communities are the primary stakeholder group. For all the reasons we have discussed throughout this book and particularly in this chapter, it is critical to understand and respect the communities closest to your project site, and to earn their trust and respect.

As a starting point, Table 6.2 shows a collection of community elements as well as the groups and institutions that may be impacted by project development. By no means is this a complete list of community groups. We intend it as an overview of the types of groups that a project team might engage with. Stakeholder planning and strategy should consider each of these elements and evaluate the potential opportunities for consultation and collaboration.

When seeking to understand the communities in your project's area of influence, do not assume that they are amorphous groups by overly simplifying or generalizing characteristics, attitudes, histories, or experiences. Communities are an informal assembly of individuals and there is no easy way to define “they” or “them.” Each community is a complex, interlinked, overlapping network of people and groups. For instance, a local community member could be a project employee, union member, local city councilor, coach of a youth sports team, and be an avid hiker on the local trails, or fish local rivers for their family's primary food source. Each one of these roles could have a conflicting view of the project.

Indigenous Engagement

Communities that self-identify as indigenous have ancient ties to a specific land, territory, and natural resource, whose culture is handed down through generations, and who have experienced marginalization, subjugation, or discrimination, are characterized as indigenous peoples. And according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, they have a right to self-determination. Embedded within this universal right to self-determination is the standard for Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).

FPIC is a principle that states, “All peoples have the right to self-determination” and that “all peoples have the right to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”¹

In the context of major project development, a stakeholder engagement program must be cognizant of the rights of indigenous peoples by honoring their right to pursue economic, social, and cultural development, and to self-determination. When the project causes impact to an indigenous community, the project team should follow the principles of FPIC from the start of the project. The FPIC process is inclusive for indigenous communities to participate in decision making regarding projects that have an impact on their communities and lands.

FPIC is not unlike engagement strategies that are used for all local communities. However, FPIC is a specific program that pertains to indigenous peoples that empowers them to negotiate the conditions under which the project will be designed, implemented, monitored, and evaluated. These negotiations will often be documented in a Community Agreement or an Impact and Benefit Agreement. More on this later in the chapter.

Develop engagement strategies for indigenous communities that respect language and customs, cultural differences between the project organization and the community, and how they perceive the land, their relationship with the land, and how they currently use and have used the land over generations. A strong indigenous engagement program incorporates respect for the indigenous community's value and use of time, as well as the communications and decision-making processes within the community. Strong and positive engagement with indigenous peoples contributes to project success and community success.

Stakeholder Summaries

It is helpful to create a stakeholder summary document that succinctly summaries the characteristics of each community and community group or individual, the potential impacts they may experience from the project, and their concerns. It also helps to note things like preferred language and form of consultation. (A sample Stakeholder Summary template is provided in Appendix B.) The stakeholder summaries can be helpful in assessing risks and should be reviewed regularly, particularly the stakeholders who are likely to be impacted by the project. The summaries can also be reviewed in advance of a meeting to remind yourself of their concerns or expectations. They are extremely useful for sites that operate on rotational schedules where roles are usually shared, and during times of transition to a new stage of the project development.

Stakeholder Mapping

A stakeholder map is often used to visually lay out where a stakeholder is positioned in terms of the level of interest they may have in the project, and the level of influence they could have on the project's outcome. There is no one right way to develop a stakeholder map but one traditional version is shown in Figure 6.1. In this model, it is important to understand which individuals or groups will be impacted by the project and will therefore have a high level of interest in the project (which can be mapped on the y-axis) versus their potential to affect the outcome of the project (which is mapped on the x-axis).

Once mapped, a clear picture will emerge about how to prioritize and organize the stakeholder engagement planning for community groups or individuals. As a general rule, stakeholders falling into the top right quadrant are those that must be engaged proactively and stakeholders in the lower left quadrant can be included in regular contact but don't require the same level of active engagement. It is important to remember that this mapping can change as the project develops. Stakeholders can become more (or less) interested with the project as they learn about it. Also, the ability to influence the project can also change, such as when local governments change, or youth get older and become more engaged in the local community.

Tracking

An effective way to track stakeholder relationships is to keep the project's stakeholder summaries updated. Each meeting should be logged either in a meeting minutes file or in a database, and the summary should be updated accordingly, if needed.

Like the stakeholder summary, the stakeholder map is also a living document. It should be visited regularly, with frequency depending on the project phase and activity level. In addition, each time a project transitions to a new phase or undergoes an unplanned change, the stakeholder list and map should be revisited and updated. In between, whenever your project team encounters a new interest group or individual, they should be added to the list and a new stakeholder summary should be generated.

Town Hall Meetings

Members of local communities will have varying levels of interest in your project and the complex and changing issues that will affect them. A town hall meeting (also called a public meeting) is typically an open invitation to anyone in the community to learn more about the project and share their views and experience. A brief presentation is a good way to start the meeting and introduce the project and the project team, but it also important to keep the agenda loose. The purpose of a town hall is not just to inform but to listen and learn about the issues most salient for the communities. It is important for people to ask questions and share their ideas in a safe forum. The meeting should include more time spent listening to attendees than on presenting your project summary, status, or update.

It is important to be fully transparent in town hall meetings so that you do not lose credibility or trust with the community. Be prepared to receive and not necessarily respond (or defend) criticism. Be prepared for questions that you may not have answers to. And be prepared to say, “I don't know and will try to find out the answer,” if you truly do not know the answer to a question.

Perception Surveys

A perception survey is a study to collect stakeholder impressions about the project, the organization, project engagement programs, community involvement, and the project's reputation. Surveys can be in written form, emailed, online forms, oral, in person, by phone, or otherwise, and the survey can vary in length and focus. In order to get the best feedback, it is important for community members to feel that their answers are confidential and will not be used against them or their community.

A perception survey is not a fact-finding mission. Rather, it is a mission to understand the local opinions of the project and the organization in order to better understand how the project is perceived, the issues people are concerned about, what they are interested in hearing more about, and their preferred methods of engagement. Depending on how the project executes its survey, questions can be presented in a multiple of formats. For example, forms that are administered online can be in yes/no, multiple choice, or a scale of opinion (i.e. strongly like/neutral/strongly dislike). Surveys that are administered in person can be conversational, long-answer discussion, and questions can be open ended, getting predominantly qualitative information.

The survey results can be used internally to understand stakeholder concerns, identify key issues and risks that need to be managed, and support project planning. The results can also be used to facilitate discussions with the local community to address issues that have been identified to be of deeper concern. For example, an issue that was raised frequently in the perception survey can be used as the basis for developing a community working group, design workshop, or focus group to address. Openly addressing the results of the perception survey can help to demonstrate that the project is listening to community concerns and strengthen local relationships.

The results of a perception survey can also be used to demonstrate some level of community acceptance for the project. Investors, financing companies, regulators, and NGOs often talk in terms of “social license” or “informed consent” to describe community support for a project. But as, discussed in Chapter 1, there is no formal process for confirming that the project meets this unofficial requirement. When evidence is required by one of these stakeholders, a current perception survey can be useful because it shows the level of local support for the project and identifies the key concerns raised by the community. The survey, in conjunction with sustainability management processes to address community concerns, should be sufficient to demonstrate the project's fulfillment of the metaphorical “social license.”

Focus Groups

In a focus group, structured interviews are used to raise a specific set of questions with a group from the local community or a group of stakeholders with a common interest. Interactions between the group members stimulate a focused discussion. The objective of using focus groups in stakeholder engagement process is to see how participants might respond to each other, providing you with further insights that arose during individual interviews. Good facilitation skills help to overcome group dynamic challenges (such as dominant personalities controlling the conversation) and create a safe environment for everyone to share their opinions.

Formal Working Groups

A working group (or roundtable) is formed for the purpose of accomplishing a specified goal, as identified through community engagement or by the project team. The project team may feel that certain issues need a formalized mechanism for ongoing dialogue to keep on top of persistent issues, to maintain relationships, and to keep or build trust. A working group might focus on a wide range of topics, including:

• Local economic development
• Community health and well-being
• Water usage and management
• Environmental monitoring
• Traditional land use
• Infrastructure
• Traffic and community safety
• Land reclamation
• Community agreements

For every working group, since it is ongoing and requires consistent membership and participation by the same parties, a terms of reference document should be developed and presented to all members. This document should outline the ways in which the group of people agree to work together to accomplish common goals, how participants will be selected, levels of commitment, and whether and how much participants will be paid. The terms of reference are a critical step to creating a shared set of expectations and accountabilities for working group members.

Membership of the working group should encompass a wide range of stakeholders, including local government, regulators, community representatives, NGOs, members of the project team, and any experts that can add value to the discussion. Depending on the level of cooperation within the working group, it may be beneficial to have an external facilitator who can help manage expectations, run meetings, and manage follow-up. This allows the project team members to act as active and equal participants in the working group, as opposed to running the working group.

Design Workshops

Similar to working groups, design workshops (often called charettes) engage the community as an active participant in project development by using design as a key tool to facilitate discussion among a variety of stakeholders. Design workshops are typically used for urban infrastructure projects but can also be applied to other projects when project impacts will affect local communities, or where infrastructure be shared. Refer to Chapter 10, “Design,” for more on this methodology.

To initiate a design workshop, the project team would assemble a group of stakeholders with a wide range of backgrounds and interests to discuss a specific design issue and get their input on design options and alternatives. Ideally the workshop would be conducted as early as possible in the project to identify potential issues and community expectations. It is important for the project team to reconnect with the workshop participants to show them how their ideas and inputs helped to shape the project design outcome.

Individual Interviews

One-on-one engagement with individual stakeholders will depend on the individual and the purpose of the meeting. The advantage of an individual interview is that you have their undivided attention and they have yours. The use of formal tools, like a PowerPoint presentation, is generally not suitable for meeting with one person. Individual meetings are about connecting to achieve a higher level of mutual understanding in relation to the project. It could be an official meeting such as a government representative, the head of a local vocational school, or a landowner whose property is located on the project boundary. These are key stakeholders with potentially a high interest in the success of your project. In instances such as these, engagement is truly about building a relationship that can endure throughout the project's lifecycle.

Site Tours

It is extremely effective to host tours of the project site for key stakeholders. Site tours demonstrate a willingness to be transparent and build credibility and trust with stakeholders. And they help stakeholders to better understand the project and what to expect when the construction starts.

The project team can host an “open invitation” open house, where anyone can drop by for a tour on a designated day. Or open houses can be arranged for specific stakeholder groups, such as schools and training institutions, women-led businesses, indigenous elders and leaders, city planners and city officials, or job seekers.

Project Website

A website with project information, contact information, a community hotline, and an email inquiry account is a must for communications with stakeholders. A project website provides stakeholders with 24-hour access to project information and is a good place to share project reference materials (project designs, maps, and impact assessment documents), schedule of open houses, project announcements (employment opportunities, request for proposals and invitations to bid), and how to file a complaint or grievance (see Chapter 8).

Social Media

Social media can be effective and efficient in maintaining contact with some stakeholders. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn are only as effective as you are at using them. Social media is efficient for quickly transmitting information but not as effective as personal contact, which is key to building trusting relationships. It is hard to have an effective dialogue with stakeholders over a public media forum.

Your project should have standards of engagement that pertain to social media. Only certain project team members should have authority to communicate on these media, usually the communications team or a team member with experience in communications. Managing the size of the team that posts on social media can ensure that messages are aligned with project messaging and communications standards, and that accurate information is distributed. An external communications company or specialist may be required for projects that are complex or that might be perceived as contentious when it comes to environmental and social impacts.

The project should still have a policy for all project workers about the use of social media related to the project and their work. Team members should understand that they cannot share confidential information, publicly complain about their employer, or slander project stakeholders.

Newsletters and Brochures

Newsletters and brochures can be used to supplement the project website and can be an important source of information for stakeholders who are not internet connected or do not typically check websites or social media. They can be distributed via local libraries or community centers or delivered door to door, depending on local needs. Newsletters should be provided in the local languages to ensure that the project information is accessible to all community members.

Traditional Media

Traditional media like radio, TV, and newspapers still have an important role to play in communications with the local community. This is especially true in developing economies where local media outlets are the key method for transmitting information and engaging stakeholders.

Access Number and Email Address

A project contact phone number and email for the project should be established as another method for individuals to request further information or raise any concerns or complaints about the project.

Site Signage

Site signage at the entrance to construction sites should be provided to warn people about potential safety risks and construction activities, for example. The signage should also be placed at any location where the local community could encounter construction activities (walking or cycling trails, hunting routes, etc.).

Scheduling

Incorporating stakeholder engagement tasks into the overall project schedule is important so that sufficient time is set aside for design workshops, for example, to develop high-level design strategies with the local community and town hall meetings to present design information. The project schedule should also reflect time for procurement teams to meet with the local business community to discuss contract opportunities and to engage with potential local employees to discuss job opportunities.

As the project moves into construction, the schedule needs to include time required to inform local communities of upcoming project activities to avoid project delays or blockades due to lack of information or understanding. The most efficient projects are managed so that project activities are prefaced by adequate stakeholder engagement resulting in far fewer delays. Project activities that will be disruptive or may impact the local community (arrival of additional employees; traffic disruptions; dust, noise, and other nuisances) or have a high environmental or social impact would obviously need to be accompanied by high engagement with the relevant stakeholders.

Monitoring

It is challenging to actually “measure” the effectiveness of your stakeholder engagement plan. The number of engagements may indicate how much time and resources are invested in engaging local communities, but it is not truly reflective of their efficacy, or the strength of the project's relationships with them. There are some indicators that can be tracked to shed some light on how stakeholder relationships are evolving. Examples include monitoring the number of complaints that the project receives or tracking the number of calls into the toll-free line (positive calls, negative calls, and general inquiries).

The most effective method for measuring the strength of your stakeholder relationships is to repeat the perception survey on a regular basis. These studies are well worth the time and investment to understand as much as possible about the concerns that the local community has and how they feel about the project. Findings give a strong indication of the level of community support that the project may or may not have.

Managing Community Complaints

Throughout the life of a project, the project will receive complaints from the local communities about impacts, nuisance activities, or general concerns caused by the project activities or workers. Local communities are typically the first to experience tangible impacts from project activities, and any complaints or concerns that they raise should be documented, addressed, and managed to avoid further issues.

Tracking Project Commitments

It is inevitable that, in order to get a major project off the ground, commitments to local communities will be made at various levels. These commitments are based on sharing the economic benefits of the project, such as employment, and implementing environmental programs to manage impacts. Commitments may be made during project approvals through impact assessment processes, at town hall meetings, or through negotiating community agreements.

Fulfilling commitments and demonstrating fulfillment is critical to project success. Unfulfilled commitments break trust and can destroy the project's social capital. Every major project should have a commitments management plan that identifies accountabilities for making and fulfilling stakeholder commitments.