Key messages
- Multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs) are increasingly seen as essential for collaboration -- across different levels of government and among multiple constituencies-- due to the growing urgency to address climate change and transform development trajectories.
- A review of the scholarly literature reveals that more equitable and resilient MSFs require a shift in emphasis away from how to design projects toward designing engagement in a way that addresses a specific situation or context.
- Designing for engagement combines top-down with bottom-up approaches, starting with a period of research and meetings at upper levels to understand the potential challenges that local project implementers face within the broader context they are encountering.
- This process is engaged, committed and adaptive, supporting a spirit of co-learning among all actors, building mutual respect and trust over time.
- This approach has the best chance of resilience in the face of change or challenge, and of leading to equitable outcomes -- and is not fostered by the increasingly short-term nature of donor funding and the emphasis on simple quantitative impact indicators.
Authors:
Larson, A.M.; Sarmiento Barletti, J.P.
Subjects:
governance, climate change, policy, development
Publication type:
Brief, Publication
Year:
2020