Inter-project and inter-governmental clinics: Implementing Public Participation

Doctors: Jessica Troell, Environmental Law Institute

Mary Matthews, Tethys Consultants, Inc.

1. What was discussed?

Participants shared their experiences and challenges related to implementing public and stakeholder involvement in international waters projects. Specifically, participants raised the following issues:

• Levels of trust among stakeholders, particularly when members of the public feels that government has a hidden agenda.
• NGO credibility can be an issue that impacts public involvement when they are used as representatives of stakeholders for project purposes
• Lack of willingness to share government-held information with stakeholders.
• Public participation takes a long time and requires resources that are not always available in GEF IW projects.
• There is an issue when the government (or other institution) raises stakeholder expectations of being involved and then doesn’t follow through.
• Need for effective media relations.
• Lack of ownership when participation is at the level of information dissemination or even consultation. There is a need to involve stakeholders and the public (both) meaningfully and create mechanisms for incorporating and using feedback from stakeholders into the project planning and implementation.
• Quantitative indicators do not accurately capture the quality of participation – there is a need for qualitative/descriptive monitoring and evaluation approaches.
• The important of articulating real benefits (i.e., by demonstration real change) to stakeholders of their participation to overcome apathy and avoid participation fatigue. This can be more difficult at the international level and pilot or demonstration projects have been effective in overcoming that challenge.
• Participation needs to be integrated into the project planning and execution and not take place “on the side”
• There is a need to avoid top-down participation, imposing structures and capacity-building or training initiatives on stakeholders.
• Local stakeholders have relevant knowledge that should be used by projects
• Involving stakeholders/community into project implementation at local level raises awareness of issues and builds capacity
• Corruption affects poor stakeholders disproportionately
• Need to adjust “level” of participation at different times throughout project

2. Any consensus on statement or approaches?

Participants generally agreed on the challenges and issues that were raised.

3. Any kind of problems solved?

Participants made suggestions to address the issue of sharing information. Where civil society is credible to the public, it was suggested that government work with NGOs to work with communities/the public. This can build credibility of government when associated with successful interventions. It was also suggested that legal frameworks are often created through GEF projects that contain information-sharing requirements.

4. Recommendations

Many of the recommendations are provided in the “issues discussed” above.

• Provide funding directly to other stakeholders (private sector, NGOs, etc.) to implement parts of the project
• Provide more funding for public participation
• Need to work with general public as well as project stakeholders
• Create opportunities for demonstrating benefits to stakeholders at local level and scaling up
• Include more stakeholders in project steering committee and other project-related institutions
• Make better use of stakeholder knowledge in projects, particularly in defining issues to be addressed
• Need for more qualitative (and better quantitative) indicators for monitoring and evaluating implementation of public participation

5. follow-up actions

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