Stakeholder Engagement Plan: Agulu-Nanka Gully Complex Site of Southeastern Nigeria

The Economics of Land Degradation (ELD), MOOC 2015 Options and pathways for action: Stakeholder engagement

3rd Team Assignment Week 5

Agulu Nanka Gully Complex Site: Stakeholders Engagement Plan

1. Introduction

Stakeholders to be included in the project engagement process were selected using the interest-influence matrix. This is based on their interest and influence which can also be defined as power which is relevant to solving the gully erosion problem in our site. Drawing some inspiration from the snow-balling approach, we make the list non-exhaustive as we intend to check up with key stakeholders whether some stakeholders or sectors are missing from our list. This builds some flexibility in our inclusion process.

The research project is intending to engage with five types of stakeholders using a multi-stakeholder approach. These are:

those who have decision-making power e.g. local government/legislators and other government departments such as the town planning office as they set the policy stage for other actors.

those who can disseminate the research findings widely and effectively, such as:

Town unions and community based initiatives for organizing community meetings where discussions on issues that are of importance to the community are held. As they also are the organisers of the Towns day which is a sort of open house where visitors and those in the diaspora come visiting to contribute to the development. They also feed into policy and are closest to the people. That is where to go when you need to reach the locals fast.

Media this comprises newspapers, magazines, radio, TV which are very useful for reaching wide and near to the populace.

Schools, i.e. primary schools, junior and senior highs etc. Since these youths are the future of any community, our goal is to get young, youthful people involved for lasting impact when we adults are all long gone to the great beyond. We are ardent believers in the adage that says, catch them young. We intend to work also with the teachers and urge them to teach what they learn in the project to their students.

Civil society (private and religious). Such as Community-based organisations e.g. NGOs and Faith-based organisations (FBOs). They address specific local issues e.g. gully prevention, nutrition, market access for local farmers, promoting conservation measures, etc. They also focus on training, enlightenment of community, understand how to access funds and aid the community to implement some of their ideas.

those who might not always be included or taken into consideration in decision-making processes

Land users, particularly farmers and Self-help initiatives e.g. neighbourhood residentsassociation who are mostly impacted upon by damages caused by the gullies. For example, as farms are degraded by soil erosion, etc., farmersmeans of livelihood are lost. We believe its good to include them from the onset and our intension is to work very closely with the farmers committees and representatives in the different wards/neighbourhoods in the towns. They have very good insight into the drivers of gullies and have experience based knowledge which is very crucial in understanding the scientific results we will get from the research. Findings, for example, from climate model simulations will be better integrated with community perception. Also, it is important to have a thorough working knowledge of the local context (culturally, socioeconomic, taboos) in order to identify and propose solutions that will be culturally acceptable. Such understanding can be sourced from the land users themselves.

those who are likely funders of projects in the community, such as International governmental organisations (IGOs) and International civil society organisations (ICSOs). Their concerns are often very varied depending on the mandate they are out to fulfill but they seek where these are congruent with local needs.

1.1 Mapping relationships between stakeholders

The relationships between the identified stakeholders was analysed by identifying interlinkages between them using the actor-linkages matrix. Mapping of relationships between stakeholders is an important step in successfully engaging stakeholders to combat the gully erosion problem in the Agulu-Nanka site. For example, noting whether these relationships are conflicting or complementary between particular stakeholders will aid the better management of stakeholders with caution when interest of key actors might clash (see Table 1).

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South East Nigeria team 3rd Assignment week 5

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South East Nigeria team 3rd Assignment week 5

Table 1: Actor-linkages matrices for mapping relationships between stakeholders

Local communities

Farmers

Legislators

Town planning office

Scientists / Researchers

Environmental clubs in schools

Self-help initiatives

FBOs

NGOs

IGOs/ ICSOs

Local communities

(same)

complementary

Cooperation/conflict

conflict

Cooperation/conflict

cooperation

complementary

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Farmers

Complementary/conflict

(same)

Cooperation/conflict

conflict

Cooperation/conflict

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Legislators

Cooperation/conflict

Cooperation/conflict

(same)

cooperation

Cooperation

cooperation

complementary

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Town planning offics

conflict

conflict

cooperation

(same)

Complementary

Complementary/conflict

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Scientists / Researchers

Cooperation/conflict

Cooperation/conflict

Cooperation

Complementary

(same)

cooperation

complementary

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Environmental clubs in schools

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

Complementary/conflict

cooperation

(same)

complementary

complementary

complementary

complementary

Self-help initiatives

complementary

conflict

cooperation

Complementary

cooperation

complementary

(same)

cooperation

complementary

complementary

FBOs

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

complementary

cooperation

(same)

cooperation

cooperation

NGOs

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

complementary

complementary

cooperation

(same)

cooperation

IGOs/ ICSOs

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

complementary

cooperation

cooperation

cooperation

(same)

2. Methods of engaging stakeholders

The proposed research will endeavor to overcome the pitfall of specialists lack of communication with policy shapers and makers by engaging with them at the beginning and end of the project. There is the need for reliable, up-to-date data and knowledge of where land degradation takes place, the type and at what intensity and efforts land users are making to address this problem if any (Liniger et al. 2008).

All stakeholders together will be invited to two separate workshops, the first workshop will hold at the project inception to sensitize stakeholders about the project objectives, whereas the second will be held as a policy workshop where results will be presented and discussed to specific user groups such as leaders/politicians, farmers, and community groups as the case may be. The idea would be to provide more ideas for long-term control of the gully problem. In between these two workshops, series of community meeting will be planned to meet the community groups such as the town unions before field work commences. A flyer will be produced for the inception workshop and an info brief will be produced to disseminate results.

2.1 Engaging Local Government Authorities

In order to ensure the success of this stakeholder engagement plan, we need to interest the Local Government Authority in the project. The principal investigator (PI) of the project intends to work very closely with the Orumba North Local Government authority where Nanka town is located and the Anaocha Local Government Authority where Agulu is located. Both towns are in Anambra State in South-eastern Nigeria. The project team hopes to established contact with both local government Chairmen. In this regard, a letter of intent from the local government as intended partners and users of research results from the project will be requested for inclusion as an Annex to this plan for submission to would-be sponsors.

2.2 Engaging other stakeholders

Stakeholders such as the land users themselves, farmers will be consulted directly during fieldwork. Others to be engaged are some civil society organisations. The intention is to initially attend some of their community activities that are open to the public. Using participant observation methods, we need to see first-hand what they do, their ideals and mission. This aspect is crucial because we wish to avoid any conflict of interest from NGOs, FBOs and self-help initiatives as they are many