Involving stakeholders: Toolkit on organising successful consultation

Summary

This stakeholder consultation toolkit provides guidelines, tips and checklists to support the planning and execution of a range of consultation activities.

Besides the fact that stakeholder consultation is increasingly becoming a legal requirement in urban mobility planning and implementation processes, there are many ways in which decision makers and practitioners can benefit from it.

Stakeholder consultation:

• Improves the quality of decision making, because those with a vested interest contribute from the initial stages;
• Identifies controversial issues and difficulties before a decision is made;
• Brings together different stakeholders with different opinions, enabling an agreement to be reached together and preventing opposition at a later stage, which can slow down the decision-making process;
• Eliminates delays and reduces costs in the implementation phase;
• Gives stakeholders a better understanding of the objectives of decisions and the issues surrounding them;
• Creates a sense of ownership of decisions and measures, thus improving their acceptance;
• Renders the decision-making process more democratic, giving citizens and local communities the power to influence decisions and, as a result, a greater sense of responsibility;
• Builds local capacity;
• Enhances public confidence in decision makers; and
• Creates opportunities for stakeholders and decision makers to learn from each other by exchanging information and experience.