A stakeholder is any person, group of people or organisation with a possible interest or stake in something. Key stakeholders are those who have significant influence or will experience significant impact. In urban WASH schemes typical key stakeholders include the users and beneficiaries, the people responsible for the scheme (for example, local sector officials, service providers), and people who may be negatively affected.

The purpose of stakeholder mapping is to analyse the relative power and influence of different stakeholders and relate this to their level of interest in the scheme, project, programme, etc. Successful stakeholder mapping helps you to design effective engagement processes based on your knowledge and understanding of the relationships between the different stakeholders.

You might start with an explanation of the overall purpose of stakeholder engagement, which is to involve stakeholders in project planning and development so they can influence the decisions and outcomes. You may also have mentioned any of the following points:

• You are developing a plan to meet with stakeholders to hear their opinions about the proposed scheme because it is important their views are taken into consideration.
• By involving the stakeholders, they will feel a sense of ownership and responsibility so the project is more likely to be successful and sustainable.
• You need to prepare information about the scheme that you can share with stakeholders.
• It is important to reach all members of the community so you need to consider how you can ensure that there is representation from all the groups, including the vulnerable and marginalised.
• The process will help to develop two-way communication skills and will lead to better understanding on both sides.

There are many challenges associated with community involvement that you might come across when planning and implementing urban WASH projects. They include:

• Lack of coordination between different sectors and organisations makes it difficult to make effective plans. Poor communications between different organisations adds to the problem.
• It is difficult to reach all members of a community especially those on low income, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. Women may not be able to participate in meetings but it is important that they are involved in WASH developments.
• Working across disciplinary and sector boundaries presents challenges because different ways of working must be brought together cooperatively, but this is not always easy to achieve.