A Strategic Framework for Stakeholder Consultation and Communication:

The ISPE™ Methodology

By Kathleen Slattery

About the Author...

Kathleen Slattery manages the Water Practice with the Washington, D. C. based Institute for Public-Private Partnerships (IP3), where she lectures and consults on privatisation and regulatory reform in the water and wastewater sector.

Governments around the world are increasingly recognizing the need to understand and engage stakeholders in the process of public sector reform in order to build support for change and ensure long-term sustainability. There are two primary means by which to engage stakeholders - consultation and communication.

Consultation is a process through which stakeholders play an active role in shaping and implementing reforms. Communication is a process through which information regarding reforms is shared between stakeholders and reformers. Both processes must be interactive, with stakeholders and reformers on equal footing. Not surprisingly, consultation and communication are often linked together, forming integral parts of a government's stakeholder outreach program.

This paper presents a strategic framework that can be used to design and implement consultation and communication programs, and provides examples from the water and sanitation sector to illustrate best practices and lessons learned.

1. Why Communication and Consultation?

Consultation and communication are important for a number of reasons, including:

• Change the behavior and values of stakeholders, leading to improved enterprise performance, more efficient use of resources, and enhanced relations between stakeholder groups.
• Increase the demand responsiveness of public services by providing consumers with a voice and enabling them to make informed choices, and helping service providers to tailor programs and services to consumer needs.
• Build support for reform among key constituents such as policy-makers, labor, consumers, industry, and others.
• Improve coordination between various branches of the public sector resulting in an integrated approach to policy formulation, regulation, investment planning, and service provision.
• Prepare stakeholders for changes that will come about as a result of reforms and set the stage for smooth transitions to new regulatory regimes, institutional change, privatization, and other reforms.

The most successful consultation and communications programs are those that are culturally sensitive and context-specific. They must be targeted to a specific set of stakeholders, tailored to a particular issue, and reflect political and social realities. In other words, they must be customized. The need for customization is often perceived as prohibitive and costly by governments, and the result is that consultation and communication are typically undertaken in a cursory manner if at all.

2. A Strategic Framework for Communication and Consultation

To assist governments planning or undergoing reform to design and carry out effective consultation and communication programs, IP3 employs the ISPE™ methodology, comprised of four main phases, as follows:

• Issue identification and goals definition
• Stakeholder mapping
• Program development and implementation
• Evaluation and feedback

The ISPE™ method is an iterative process that involves two-way sharing of information between stakeholders. It provides a framework within which governments can create customized consultation and communications programs that reflect international best practices while responding to local needs and realities.

2.1 Issue identification and goals definition

The first step in any communication or consultation program is to identify the issue that will be the focus of the program in a clear and concise (no more than a few sentences) manner. The issue statement should include a definition of the goals to be achieved through consultation and/or communication. For example, the issue to be addressed by a consultation program may be the introduction of private sector participation (PSP) in the delivery of telecommunications services, and the goal may be to ensure that the PSP arrangement is structured in a demand-responsive manner and to build support for PSP among key stakeholders. A well-developed issue statement will lay the foundation for identifying stakeholders, designing the communication program, and measuring whether the program has been successful in achieving its goals.

2.2 Stakeholder mapping

Once the issue to be addressed through consultation or communication has been clearly identified, the next step in the ISPE™ method involves stakeholder mapping. The process of stakeholder mapping begins with the identification of stakeholder groups. Stakeholders can be divided into primary stakeholders - those that are directly impacted by the issue - and secondary stakeholders - those that may not be directly impacted, but that have a role to play in the process of reform. Typically, the primary stakeholder groups affected by public sector reform include:

• Government: Legislators, policy-makers, regulators, the judicial branch, and any national, regional, or local elected representatives.
• Labor: Union leaders, union members, and other civil servants.
• Consumers: Households, commercial enterprises, industry, civic leaders, religious groups, community associations, NGOs, and others.
• Investors: Current and potential private investors or operators.

Depending upon the issue, some stakeholders from the above list may be classified as secondary rather than primary. For example, in crafting a communications program about an expected increase in the average tariff for water and sewerage services, members of the labor category may not be directly affected and therefore would not be considered primary stakeholders.

Additionally, journalists are often a secondary and very important stakeholder group. Print, radio, and television journalists are not often directly impacted by reforms in their capacity as journalists. However, they have a critical role to play in communicating information about reforms to stakeholders.

The stakeholder mapping process involves the identification of key stakeholders and analysis of each stakeholder groups' current knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) with respect to the issue identified. Stakeholder KAP can be gauged through a variety of mechanisms, from one-on-one interviews, to focus group meetings, to surveys. The KAP is used to determine how the consultation or communication program should be designed so that stakeholders are engaged in a meaningful way, and sets the initial benchmark to be used in measuring the success of the consultation or communication program in achieving its goals.

2.3 Program development and implementation

The issue statement and the stakeholder mapping exercise will drive the development and implementation of the consultation or communication programs. Specifically, stakeholder mapping enables the designers of consultation or communication programs to target the particular aspects of an individual stakeholder group's knowledge, attitude, or practices that the program should address.

While many governments engage the services of internationally-renowned consulting or public relations firms to advise them on the design and implementation of their consultation or communications programs, it is essential that international experts be supplemented by a local firm or expert in the design of the program. The program development and implementation phase will be highly customized to local needs, practices, as well as cultural, political and social realities. Only a local firm is truly equipped to ensure this degree of customization.

Regardless of whether the government itself designs the program, or it is designed by local or international experts, the program development and implementation phase will involve the design of a set of strategies and activities to be carried out. The activities can include the use of modern media from poster campaigns and newspaper articles, to television advertisements and internet-based advertising and educational programs; or, if appropriate, they can employ more traditional media forms such as street theatre, puppet shows, and storytelling. The right mix of activities will be highly tailored to local custom and to the manner in which primary stakeholders obtain information.

2.4 Evaluation and feedback

Using the ISPE methodology, the goals of the communication or consultation program are defined in the first stage (issue identification and goals definition). If this is done properly, the evaluation and feedback stage will simply entail measuring the degree to which the communication or consultation program has achieved the goals that were defined in phase one. The key to the evaluation and feedback process is to select specific indicators for evaluating the success of the program. These indicators must be both measurable and observable. In this sense, surveys are an important tool that can be used to set initial benchmarks for the communication or consultation program, and to measure the program's progress in affecting change.

Evaluation and feedback indicators can measure program success in three areas:¹

• Process evaluation measures the degree to which the communication or consultation program was carried out according to plan. For example, if the plan included focus group meetings, were those meetings held according to schedule?
• Impact evaluation measures the short- and medium-term effects of the communication or consultation program by analyzing the impact the program has had on stakeholders' KAP, and what impact the change in KAP has had on the issue that is the subject of the program. For example, if a communication program is aimed at reducing the incidence of diarrhoeal cases in children, the impact evaluation may measure the number of mothers that know the signs of dehydration, and the percent of mothers that wash their hands before preparing meals for their children.
• Outcome evaluation measures the long-term impact that the program has had - either through changes to stakeholders' KAP or in terms of the reform program itself. Going back to the example of the diarrheal disease prevention program, an outcome evaluation might measure infant mortality rate due to diarrheal disease.

Once process, impact, and outcome indicators have been defined, they should be encapsulated in a monitoring plan that outlines the timetable for monitoring and evaluation (M&E), the individuals responsible for managing and implementing M&E, the procedures for incorporating the results of M&E into program design, and reporting requirements.

A good M&E plan will include M&E activities during the course of communication or consultation program implementation. These mid-course evaluations are an important tool that can be used to refine the program, correct problems, and enhance its effectiveness. The plan should also include M&E activities that occur immediately after the program has concluded, as well as at specified intervals in the future. In this manner, both the outcome (short- to medium-term change) and impact (long-term change) can be measured.

3. Conclusion - Practical applications of the ISPE™ method

The ISPE™ methodology is a strategic framework that can be used to develop communications and consultation programs in any number of situations, sectors, or environments. For countries undergoing public sector reform, ISPE™ can be used in tandem with:

• Policy reform: Stakeholder consultation in the process of policy reform can build support for reforms while ensuring that they are responsive to stakeholder needs and priorities. Communications strategies can be used to prepare stakeholders for the onset of reforms and educate them on how they will be impacted by reforms.
• Private sector participation: Consultation can be a method for designing PSP so that it benefits the maximum number of stakeholders, is demand-responsive, and is attractive to private investors. Due to the often-controversial nature of PSP, consultation and communication are important tools that government can use to understand stakeholder attitudes towards PSP, address stakeholder concerns, and inform the public how PSP will affect them. Communication can also be used to inform potential investors of the project and generate investor interest leading to a more robust competitive bidding process.
• Regulatory reform: The process of regulatory reform typically involves a redefinition of the roles, rights, and obligations of the institutions and stakeholders involved in the water and sanitation sector. Communications can be used to inform stakeholders of their rights and obligations with respect to regulation, and to prepare them for the changing roles of key institutions. For established regulators, consultation is a useful method for understanding consumers' needs, and reducing information asymmetry in the regulatory process.
• Enhancing public enterprise performance: Often, reform takes place at the enterprise level and is focused on improving the quality of service, increasing accountability and transparency, and ensuring that the enterprise operates on a more commercial basis. Stakeholder consultation and communication can be used to identify areas of service that need improvement and enhanced demand-responsiveness.

In summary, consultation and communication with key stakeholders can serve as a powerful tool for governments to use in strengthening the reform process, building support for reforms, and ensuring that reforms have a positive impact for a wide range of stakeholders. The key to successful consultation and communication is a strategic, programmed approach to the design and implementation, and the willingness to devote the time and resources to customizing the program in a way that is culturally sensitive and context-specific.

¹ Adapted from "Towards Better Programming: A Manual on Communication for Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Programmes," UNICEF Water, Environment, and Sanitation Technical Guidelines Series, No. 7.