Identifying interests and analyzing impact

• Each stakeholder may have several interests which are important to identify in the analysis to help define appropriate programme strategies. These may be stated openly by stakeholders and/or are easily visible or they may be underlying and hidden. For example, police have an official duty to equally prioritize cases of domestic violence compared to other crimes: police officers may be aware that they have a duty to respond as rapidly to calls for assistance in domestic violence incidents, but feel pressure to meet targets related to closing cases of other types of violence (e.g. armed robbery), so officers may fail to respond thoroughly to domestic violence because they want to meet quotas included in their performancerecord).

• Consider the relative priority which any initiative should give to each stakeholder in meeting their interests; in this case and in-line with a survivor-centred approach, the interests of the survivor should receive highest priority. The following questions can help to assess other stakeholders’ importance to a project’s success and their relative power/influence:

  • In addition to survivors, which stakeholders’ interests can the initiative meet/ address?

  • What roles or responses are needed by key stakeholders for the project to be successful? Identify risks and assumptions which will affect the design and success of any initiative.

  • Are there negative responses which could be expected, given the interests of the stakeholders? (e.g. when an initiative might involve increased monitoring of sexual harassment complaints by female police personnel, which could be perceived as threatening to male officer’s status and positions)

  • If such responses occur, what impact would they have on the initiative?

  • Which stakeholder interests converge most closely with the objectives of a potential initiative identified in the situational analysis? (e.g. if the objective is to increase reporting of domestic abuse in a given community through the use of a mobile phone hotline, then converging interests will include those of the police, phone company, domestic violence survivors, their families and neighbours).

• An impact analysis may be conducted following the design of an initiative as part of the baseline assessment and programme monitoring plan. The assessment identifies issues that the programme will address and their potential affect (positive or negative) on stakeholders.

Adapted from: Social Development Direct. 2010, Gender and Social Exclusion Component of the DFID Research into Use Impact Evaluation: Research Methodologies. London.

Key Tools

Tools for Development: A Handbook for those engaged in development activity (Department for International Development, London, 2003). This Handbook has been designed to help the officers of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and others to undertake development activities and interventions. While not focused on the issue of violence against women or the security sector, the handbook provides a useful overview of stakeholder analysis, the different types of stakeholders, the rationale behind a conducting a stakeholder analysis, who should be involved in an analysis and the different techniques that can be used for a stakeholder analysis. It describes in detail how workshops have been a successful way of to undertaking stakeholder analysis. Available in English.

Successful Communication Online Toolkit: Stakeholder Analysis (Overseas Development Institute, 2003). This toolkit is for researchers and practitioners to develop successful communications in programmes. The tools are grouped under four broad headings: 'planning', 'packaging', 'targeting', and 'monitoring'. While not focused on the issue of violence against women, the set of tools can be adapted for security sector initiatives addressing the issue and includes links to further information, guidelines and resources at each step of the communication process. Available in English.

CARE Gender Toolkit: Stakeholder and institution mapping. This section, part of a larger toolkit developed for CARE staff on a range of programme planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes, provides detailed step-by step guidance on stakeholder and institution mapping, with illustrative examples and additional resources and tools on the subject. Available in English.