During the era of the 1970s, or rather what you would call the decade of the mega projects, stakeholder relations did not much hold import in the carrying out of government projects. These projects encompassed institutional wide activities that covered the sectors of infrastructure and transport as well as provision of services necessary for modern development such as medicine. The subject of this article is to showcase the importance of stakeholder relations today and what can be done to improve it further.
A working definition therefore is needed as regards what a stakeholder is. In essence a stakeholder is a person, regardless of age or gender, who has a direct stake in a project. This means that he or she directly benefits or does not benefit when the project is completed or is in the process of completion. Take for example an irrigation project for a farm in a small African country.
For this project the stakeholders will be the farmers themselves as they have a stake or an interest in the project being successful or not. Indirectly, other stakeholders can be the surrounding populations in urban areas who will have more supplies of farm products. Either way, they are all affected by the success or failure of the project.
Whether or not persons involved in the project are directly or indirectly affected it pays to have a good working relationship with them. This kind of relationship can only be built over time and with a lot of trust. Social and development projects before they can be implemented need to have a good working relationship with people they want to affect and in the long run help.
Non government organizations, such as the World Wide Fund and Greenpeace, have realized the importance of good relations with local communities. To further increase their efforts and ally a community support, they have turned to strategies like social marketing. Social marketing is basically a modified way of marketing something you want to sell, just like in the traditional sense.
Social marketing also makes use of brochures, flyers and other marketing materials to further the advocacy it is trying to enforce in the mind of people. Hand in hand with this it makes use of small personal interactions such as chats and interviews to get people involved and known. Venues like airport, malls and places of large foot traffic exists are great venues for this spot.
Still much research may need to be done to see an effective correlation between social marketing programs and improvements in relations with stakeholders and affected project beneficiaries and targets. However, there has been evidence that such programs do bring about an increased awareness when implemented. Logically increased understanding can make something more accepted and therefore more viable when objective viewpoints from stakeholders are concerned.
The relative success therefore or failure of any social project or development project for that matter, will definitely be dependent on how strong or weak your stakeholder relations are and what you do to strengthen or weaken your relationships with beneficiaries. This however can be augmented or changed for the better alongside a good and focused social marketing program months or even years ahead of any proposed social change or even development project.
A working definition therefore is needed as regards what a stakeholder is. In essence a stakeholder is a person, regardless of age or gender, who has a direct stake in a project. This means that he or she directly benefits or does not benefit when the project is completed or is in the process of completion. Take for example an irrigation project for a farm in a small African country.
For this project the stakeholders will be the farmers themselves as they have a stake or an interest in the project being successful or not. Indirectly, other stakeholders can be the surrounding populations in urban areas who will have more supplies of farm products. Either way, they are all affected by the success or failure of the project.
Whether or not persons involved in the project are directly or indirectly affected it pays to have a good working relationship with them. This kind of relationship can only be built over time and with a lot of trust. Social and development projects before they can be implemented need to have a good working relationship with people they want to affect and in the long run help.
Non government organizations, such as the World Wide Fund and Greenpeace, have realized the importance of good relations with local communities. To further increase their efforts and ally a community support, they have turned to strategies like social marketing. Social marketing is basically a modified way of marketing something you want to sell, just like in the traditional sense.
Social marketing also makes use of brochures, flyers and other marketing materials to further the advocacy it is trying to enforce in the mind of people. Hand in hand with this it makes use of small personal interactions such as chats and interviews to get people involved and known. Venues like airport, malls and places of large foot traffic exists are great venues for this spot.
Still much research may need to be done to see an effective correlation between social marketing programs and improvements in relations with stakeholders and affected project beneficiaries and targets. However, there has been evidence that such programs do bring about an increased awareness when implemented. Logically increased understanding can make something more accepted and therefore more viable when objective viewpoints from stakeholders are concerned.
The relative success therefore or failure of any social project or development project for that matter, will definitely be dependent on how strong or weak your stakeholder relations are and what you do to strengthen or weaken your relationships with beneficiaries. This however can be augmented or changed for the better alongside a good and focused social marketing program months or even years ahead of any proposed social change or even development project.
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