What is ‘Consultation and Participation’?

The Grass Roots Democracy Decree places great importance on consultation and participation. This building block aims to outline what it means to put these principles into practice in the context of a CDS.

The aim of a CDS is to produce a framework for the development of a city, that has wide-ranging stakeholder support. This requires the CDS process to be a participatory one. A participatory approach involves consulting and engaging different stakeholders so that their views, issues and ideas can be considered and included in the planning process.

A wide and representative cross-section of stakeholders must be involved if the city vision, goals and priorities are to be truly shared and if the CDS is to have wide support

Vietnamese cities and provinces are developing new mechanisms for consulting on their plans and are still building their capacity and experience. For many cities, using the CDS approach will mean finding ways to move beyond the ‘usual ways of doing things’. This may be challenging for cities where planning is usually done in a “top-down” way, with directions coming “from above” and planning done by government officials.

Cities that are used to this approach, may not have a lot of experience with organising widespread consultation and participation of a diversity of stakeholders. However, a basic principle of the CDS approach is “bottom-up planning”, meaning that planning involves a wide range of people who will be affected by the CDS, or involved in implementing its strategies. It aims to make sure that “everyone’s voices are heard” and helps to empower communities to develop their own approaches and solutions. For these reasons, consultation is an essential part of the CDS.

The CDS approach requires Cities to pay particular attention to consultation with:

• those people who are going to be most affected by CDS outcomes
• the poor and people in informal dwellings)
• those people whose actions or input will be crucial to the implementation of the CDS – this means including not just party officials, but other stakeholders such as city departments, non-government organisations and the private sector.

While it is challenging, a participatory approach can be extremely valuable. It can generate new ideas and help all stakeholders to agree on common goals and priorities and work together to reach consensus on the development of the city. Because different stakeholders will draw on the different perspectives of those who they represent, their participation will be a benefit to the CDS. The final CDS will be based on the discussion among different stakeholders. This will help make sure that the CDS has wide-ranging stakeholder support because it integrates the concerns of different stakeholders.

This Building Block aims to explain the principles behind using consultation and participation in a CDS and provide guidance on how to approach this ‘building block’. While consultation and participation is presented as a separate building block, it is something that should occur throughout the CDS process, from initial visioning through to monitoring and evaluation. Further, the CDS will change and develop over time and consultation processes should be incorporated into this changing process wherever appropriate.

Why is ‘Consultation and Participation’ important?

A critical part of a CDS is to ensure the broad-based participation of stakeholders. A good CDS will effectively engage with civil society and will involve all stakeholders (especially the poor) in open and meaningful discussions about issues, opportunities, visions, goals, strategies and priorities. The aim of consultation and participation is to seek consensus about the development of the city. A good process for consultation and participation allows stakeholders to share diverse opinions and work together on common goals and priorities.

Consultation is an essential first step, however effective engagement and participation requires more than formal consultation. It is a way of working that actively involves stakeholders in the design and delivery of the CDS and enables their knowledge and ideas to be incorporated into the CDS on an ongoing basis.

Effective consultation and participation helps to create a sense of ‘ownership’ of the CDS. This means that that all stakeholders feel that they share the CDS and it represents their ideas, their goals and their vision, rather than being someone else’s plan. A sense of ownership will help to give CDS strategies a greater chance of successful implementation. It will make stakeholders more likely to support and commit resources to projects and programs and will enhance cooperation and coordination amongst stakeholders.

Participation and engagement brings other benefits too. Involving the community in the CDS process helps strengthen community organizations and networks. It empowers people by enabling them to use their existing skills and by building their leadership skills and their capacity to participate in city development into the future. It promotes cooperation. Requiring different groups to work together on a CDS encourages relationships to be built and partnerships to be established between parties that have not necessarily collaborated before – such relationships can be maintained over time and transferred to other projects.

The evidence from other cities that have conducted a CDS is that developing consultation and participation mechanisms is seen as one of the most important achievements of the CDS process. This shows how, just by conducting such a process, most CDSs already go beyond the conventional practices for the city.

Key Components of ‘Consultation and Participation’

1. Plan for participation and allow enough time
2. Identify stakeholders in general
3. Identify the specific groups of stakeholder for each stage
4. Decide on the structure of the stakeholder participation
5. Carry out the consultation and participation processes
6. Incorporate consultation results into the CDS
7. Provide feedback to participants
8. Public announcement about consultation process

How to do ‘Consultation and Participation’

a) Plan for participation and allow enough time

It is an important principle that ‘everyone has a right to be heard’ in the CDS process. This element of the CDS process demands skilled and thoughtful leadership and a willingness to look beyond current thinking and involve a wider range of people than usual, in order to gain fresh insights and new approaches.

Bringing together a range of stakeholders with different interests and concerns is always challenging. It means making space in the CDS process for very different views, values, attitudes and ideas to be heard. Differences of opinion and disagreements are inevitable. Further, when people are given a chance to speak, they will not always talk only about the issues you ask them to talk about. All this can be very challenging. This is why running consultation processes is a special skill. Cities usually require some specialist assistance, both to plan and to carry out effective participation processes for a CDS.

It is important to allow sufficient time for consulation in the CDS process. Further, consultation should not be seen as a process that only happens once. Rather ongoing processes of participation should be incorporated throughout the CDS. This means that participation activities need to be carefully considered and planned in the CDS process design phase, both to allow enough time, but to make sure there is a plan for how the results of the consultations will inform the future CDS stages.

While consultation is crucial to the CDS approach, it can be very time consuming. It is important that a balance is found between doing enough consultation and leaving enough time for the later stages of the CDS. Usually there is a relatively tight timeframe for completing a CDS, so the consultation planning needs to find ways of conducting good quality consultation with a range of stakeholders without using so much time that there is little time left for the actual implementation of the CDS.

It is important to consider the various options for when to start the consultation phase. Some cities, for example Nam Dinh, have used consultation as a “first step” for their CDS and used extensive consultation to help prepare a vision. Other cities start the CDS process by making some initial assessments and then begin consulting before they develop a vision. Many different approaches are possible – the decision about which stage in the CDS to begin consultation should be made during the process design phase.

However, whenever consultation occurs, once it is started it becomes an integral part of how the next stages of the CDS are conducted – the results of the consultation are used to plan the following stages.

b) Identify stakeholders

It will not be possible for the CDS consultation to cover everyone in the city – so it is important to spend some time identifying the range of stakeholders that the process will cover. The focus should be on identifying the range of groups that need to be included and then developing a process for involving individual, representative members of these groups.

Identification of stakeholders at an early stage will help to create a successful CDS. A stakeholder can be any individual, group, organization, government or agency that is interested in, affected by, or can influence the city’s development. Stakeholders may be determined by their:

• Stake in the issues (e.g. poor residents, mass and non government organisations )
• Authority (e.g. government authority and responsible departments);
• Control over relevant resources (e.g., money, expertise) and
• Role in implementation (e.g. activist groups, lobby groups, implementing agencies, city departments).

Care should be taken to identify the full range of possible stakeholders, including stakeholders from each sector, individuals, formal and informal groups and organisations, government and non-government sources. The stakeholders should be representative and should include those who can influence the process, those who control resources and are responsible for implementation and those who will be affected by the CDS. In particular, a special effort should be made to include those groups who are not usually involved in city planning and who may traditionally not be heard in these processes (such as women’s groups, the poor or people working in the informal economy).

You may want to include different stakeholders at different stages of the CDS. For example, the visioning or assessment stages are an opportunity to include as broad a range of stakeholders as possible. Groups like the Women's Union, Youth Union, Fatherland Front, citizens from rich and poor wards, students from primary and secondary schools, university students, business sector and veterans will provide many ideas that in the traditional way they would have little chance to contribute. whereas the development of prioritised and fundable action plans may mainly involve a range of city department officials, ward civil servants, party leaders, business associations, donors, development agencies, and environmental groups.

Possible stakeholders for inclusion at various stages of the CDS include:

• Government officials (at city and province level)
• Ward civil servants
• City civil servants – from a range of different departments
• Party leaders (at city and province level)
• Peoples’ Councils
• Mass Organisations or NGOs:
• Women's Union
• Youth Union
• Fatherland Front
• Other community groups
• Individual residents:
• Residents from rich wards
• Residents from poor wards
• Students – primary and secondary schools, university students
• Business sector:
• Small medium and large businesses, from the formal and informal sectors
• Business Association
• Other stakeholders:
• Police, veterans
• Culture, education, sport and health sectors
• Research institutions and planning institutes
• International supporters (eg donors, development agencies)
• Environmental groups

MPI-GTZ Small and Medium Enterprises Development Program (SMEDP)

This Vietnamese/German project aimed to improve the competitiveness of private small and medium enterprises (SME) in Viet Nam by improving the business environment for private SMEs.

The pilot project, conducted in Hung Yen, Quang Nam, Dak Lak and An Giang used Local Coordination Boards (LCBs) consisting of key people in local government in the four provinces. The LCBs organised workshops and training on specific topics for the project beneficiaries (local leading firms, SME owners, leaders of business associations and influential people in craft villages). These gave the participants the chance to raise their issues and provide their views about what areas of the local economy needed to be developed and how.

As a result of the workshops, LCB and beneficiaries worked together to develop their ideas into projects. These were later implemented by the LCB and the beneficiaries. Ownership of the projects helped to ensure their success.

c) Decide on the structure of the stakeholder participation

Once the full range of stakeholders have been identified, a structure for engaging the various groups needs to be decided. This can take many forms, for example:

• consultation meetings with different stakeholder groups (many small meetings are better than a few large ones)
• interviews with individuals
• a stakeholder advisory committee. This is a small group of representative stakeholders to provide regular input into the direction of the CDS as it progresses. (it is different to the working group or responsible Taskforce)
• a series of thematic working groups. These would comprise people with interest or expertise in specific issues, who would be responsible for inviting other stakeholders to contribute to discussion and decision-making on those issues. The working group would initiate a range of participatory processes, such as neighbourhood meetings, workshops, focus groups, or public hearings.

In practice, it is probably not possible to engage with all stakeholders simultaneously – some may be consulted at the beginning of the CDS and others a little later.

In deciding what kind(s) of participatory process will be used, it may be useful to refer to this list of characteristics of a good process:

• The objectives of the consultation process should be clearly explained
• The process should be based on openness, respect and fairness
• The process should not overburden stakeholders – particularly those who are participating in their own time
• The process should be explained to the stakeholders from the outset, including the timeframe and scope/terms of reference for the participatory process, the activities to be undertaken and their expected roles. Participants should be informed of the decision-making methods that will be used and provided information on how stakeholder input will be incorporated into the CDS and how it will influence decisions, plans and actions.

In deciding on the kinds of participatory processes to be used, it should be remembered that different stakeholders will have different levels of capacity and different amounts of time and resources that they are able to dedicate to a CDS process. The consultation process will need to be carefully designed to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard, particularly those people who should benefit most from CDS (e.g. the poor, ethnic minorities). The design of the consultation process should aim to promote community empowerment; helping communities to develop their own approaches and solutions.

Some stakeholders will be keen to be involved and will put forward their ideas forcefully and confidently. Others will have had little or no experience of consultation and will need encouragement and assistance to participate and to express their views. Some stakeholders will be regarded as highly influential and deserving of very careful attention, especially if they are likely to provide political support or control the funding for implementation projects. Others may be seen as less important, however their views are no less important and indeed, those who are not usually consulted are likely to bring valuable new perspectives to the discussion. In Nam Dinh, each ‘activity’ or consultation was first conducted with the TaskForce officials who were responsible for the CDS. They were then more comfortable and familiar with the consultation when it was done with a wider spectrum of people who were not usually involved in city planning.

Because many people will not have much experience with consultation, it may be useful to conduct some training for participants before the consultation process begins. The city of Hai Phong used this approach, conducting a two hour training session before each CDS consultation. The training helped people to understand the principles of consultation and the process being used and helped give people the skills to participate.

Participants will also need an explanation of the CDS process, and a summary of the results of previous stages. In Nam Dinh, each consultation workshop included two parts. The first part was a general introduction to the CDS process and an explanation of how the consultation results would be incorporated. The second part sought opinions from participants.

Example: Consultation tool

One consultation tool that has been used successfully in a previous Viet Nam project is PACA, or Participatory Assessment of Competitive Advantage. PACA was used in the MPI-GTZ Small and Medium Enterprises Development Program (SMEDP).

PACA is a participatory, bottom-up, pragmatic approach to local economic development. It is based on a set of tools that permit rapid appraisal of the competitive advantages and disadvantages of local communities. It delivers concrete, practical proposals to stimulate the local or regional economy.

In the SMEDP program, PACA was applied to identify specific sectors to be developed in each province and the issues that needed to be dealt with. A team of external specialists and local LED champions conducted the PACA exercises.

The process began with a workshop and a series of interviews with local stakeholders (including firms, business associations, supporting institutions and local government) and mini-workshops with groups of local actors. Depending on the size and diversity of the locality, this takes between one and two weeks. The diagnosis and the proposals for practical interventions were elaborated and presented immediately afterwards.

Example: Planning for diverse stakeholder consultation – CDS in Nam Dinh

Consultation with stakeholders in Nam Dinh as part of the CDS included:

1. Enterprises
2. Women, Youth Unions
3. Ward civil servant
4. Fatherland Front
5. Citizens in rich areas
6. Citizens in poor areas
7. Police, veterans
8. Civil servants in different departments
9. Business Association
10. Participants from Culture, Education, Sports, Healthcare sectors
11. Pupils from Primary and Secondary Schools

Example: Example: Can Tho specific consultation with poor households

As part of the development of a strategy for poverty alleviation, specific consultations were conducted with poor households in Can Tho. The approach used was to organize small group discussions in the poorest areas of the cityIn Can Tho, as in many parts of Vietnam, there are more households living in poverty in rural than urban areas. However, to ensure that the issues of urban poverty were addressed in the CDS, it was decided to focus on the commune with the largest number of poor families, Trung Hung, where 1140 of 5278 households are poor, and the urban ward with the largest number of poor households, Thoi Long where 803 of 7038 households are poor.

Half-day consultation in the form of group discussions were held in in the ward and the commune. Discussions focused on the direct causes of poverty, the difficulties experienced by poor households and the priorities for future action. People from 91 households participated in the consultation workshop in Trung Hung including 8 ward and sub-ward officials. The consultation in Thoi Long was attended by people from 60 households (86% of all households that were invited to attend). Separate discussions were held with four ward and sub-ward officials.

The workshops were organized by the Peoples Committee of the ward and commune and the discussions were facilitated by the group of national consultants preparing the CDS. To make sure that everyone had an opportunity to contribute to the discussion and to ensure that the specific issues concerning different groups in the local communities were identified, the workshop organized people into three groups determined by the characteristics of the people who were there representing their households. The three groups were for older people, younger people and women.

d) Carry out the consultation and participation processes

There are a number of different ways to carry out consultation and participation and a range of different tools and techniques that can be used. These range from processes designed simply to collect people’s views (such as surveys or interviews), to processes designed to present information in a public forum and seek some feedback (such as public meetings) and more structured, interactive processes where small groups of people meet to discuss the issues, share ideas and develop strategies (such as workshops or stakeholder working groups).

The decision about which technique to use for various stages of the CDS depends on the purpose of the consultation at that time. At some points of the CDS, the aim may be simply to inform people of what is happening, whereas at other stages, it may be to seek their full, active involvement and participation in the process.

The International Association of Public Participation conceptualises the various processes of public participation on a spectrum. They describe the following approaches, ranging from the least to most participatory:

• Informing: providing people with information
• Consulting: obtaining public feedback
• Involving: working directly with the public throughout the process to ensure concerns are understood and considered
• Collaborating: partnering with the public in the decision-making process, including developing alternatives and identifying the preferred solution
• Empowering: placing the decision-making in the hands of the public

This “spectrum” is useful in thinking about the various different tools that could be used to enable participation during a CDS process.

For example, if the intention is to ‘consult’ with a large number of people and find out their general views, or collect their feedback on something, then a survey is a useful tool. This would be a very basic level of consultation, as it allows only a “one-way” flow of information (from the people to the decision-makers) and does not allow for any discussion or interaction between the two. However it is still very worthwhile. A more advanced approach, where the intention is to work collaboratively with stakeholders and to empower communities would require a more interactive consultation processes. This would require different tools, such as stakeholder workshops.

Example: Collaborative Techniques

A previous project in Viet Nam that used collaborative techniques with a range of stakeholders is the 2002 nationwide consultation on the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS).

Techniques used included focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews held with poor groups at community level and with groups of local officials, enterprise owners and other special interest groups. Results and findings were then validated through local and regional feedback workshops.

Around 1800 people participated in the consultations. About 250 were District and Commune / Ward officials and service providers, and the remainder local people, poor households, special interest groups, enterprise owners and household entrepreneurs.

The consultations involved over 150 focus group discussions ranging between 5 and 20 people in size. In some locations interviews were held with individuals and households to complement the focus groups and interviews. These were an way to gather the views of special interest groups and of poor people who were less confident in contributing to the group discussions.

Hoa Binh Province

Another example of the use of collaborative stakeholder consultation techniques is the community consultation process conducted in 2005 in Hoa Binh Province as part of the revision of the Socio Economic Development Plan (SEDP).

Consultation was conducted in two districts, two communes in each district and two villages in each commune. The consultation sites were chosen to be representative of different economic conditions (wealthy and poor); to includ e districts and communes that were both near and far from their centres and to be representative of different ethnic groups.

A series of group discussions was used, where participants could speak up about SEDP issues at their own locality, analyze the causes and propose solutions. They were asked to provide opinions on the topics in the province’s draft SEDP plan, prioritise issues and recommend changes.

Feedback from the different groups was presented by group leaders in plenary meetings. The topic-based consultation used in Hoa Binh produced results that reflect the community’s opinions on six particular topics that relate to the SEDP. The use of group-based consultation meant that the results reflected the opinions of different groups, including local government, social organizations and the business community.

Different participation techniques are useful for different purposes and different stages of the CDS process.

For example:

• Surveys: a useful tool for helping collect the views of a large number of people quite easily. Surveys also provide privacy for the respondent, and allow greater freedom of expression. Surveys can highlight different perceptions, for example between the public and officials. A survey can be helpful at the initial assessment stage of the CDS, as it allows a large number of people’s views to be gathered. This helps provide an overall picture of the kinds of issues that people think are important to the city. This can then help to inform the visioning phase, because it provides a guide to the kinds of issues that many people think should be addressed by the CDS.
• Interviews: a useful technique when the aim is consultation and gathering of views (as above) or when more detailed or complex information is sought. Interviews may be useful during the initial assessment phase of the CDS, for example, when they might help provide information about people’s views and attitudes toward the CDS themes. Alternatively, they may be useful at other stages. For example, the Nam Dinh CDS used interviews to reach and involve people in the development of strategies and priorities. Interviewing is useful to capture the views of people who a survey may have missed. However interviewing can usually only be done with a small number of people, as it requires more time and resources than surveys, so this needs to be considered.
• Public meetings: can be a useful way to provide information about the CDS to a large number of people. It may be possible to collect some people’s views at a public meeting, however, the format is not ideal for this as there will probably be too many people for everyone to speak and those people who are more confident and articulate are likely to dominate the meeting, meaning that not everyone’s voices will be heard.
• Interactive techniques are useful for enabling people to have input to the visioning stage or the strategy development stage, and they are critical for action planning and determining what is feasible and who will be responsible for actions. Interactive techniques are those that allow a “two-way” discussion, rather than a one-way flow of information. , whereas a public meeting is open to all, interactive techniques tend to be used with groups of participants who are invited – and who are often chosen to represent a particular group. Examples of interactive techniques include focus groups and workshops (see below). It is important to note that, for these kinds of processes to be effective, they require experienced facilitators to make sure that all voices are heard and that discussion is focused on the relevant issues.
• Focus groups: small groups of people are invited to gather together at a meeting. The groups could be thematic – with a focus on one or two issues. The faciliator can use various tools and techniques. For example, in Nam Dinh the focus groups used the technique of small group discussion (4-5 participants in each group) and then presentation to the whole group. The technique of the ‘colour card’ was also used to help prioritise issues. Focus groups can be used to enable particular groups of people to discuss an issue together. For example one focus group could be for poor residents, or women, or young people, or different groups could be organised for residents of different areas of the city. Care must be given to the mix of people invited, so that people feel comfortable expressing themselves, have the chance to speak, and feel that protocol is followed. For example, having several focus groups with different sectors of society (eg. small business owners, retirees, civil servants) may work better than having mixed groups in which people have very different levels of education, or ‘social status’.
• Workshops: similar to focus groups. However focus groups usually intend simply to collect views and ideas from participants, whereas workshops tend to be more interactive and provide an opportunity for a more participative process. For example, those attending the workshop might be asked to consider draft plans and prioritise issues, or make decisions about preferred strategies for example.
• Circulating drafts of documents for feedback and comment. Or circulating a simple summary of ‘this is what we heard, what do you think?’
• All these different techniques are useful and the choice about which techniques to use will be made by each city. Different cities will approach consultation and participation in different ways and the choice of process will depend on questions of timing, budget and local needs. Ideally however, a mix of the techniques mentioned is the best approach.

Whichever techniques are chosen, thorough and timely preparation is critical in order to make sure the consultation processes run smoothly. In particular, it is necessary to carefully explain the purpose, approach and methodology to local officials and discuss what local resources will be required. It is useful to make preparatory visits to the consultation sites. It is important to recognise that some of these techniques or approaches might be new for local officials. Many of these techniques are new and will require capacity building and training.

Ideas to encourage people to participate:

1. Announce meetings well in advance, remind people close to the date
2. Extend direct and personal invitations to groups and individuals
3. Target representatives of all opinions, groups and ages, including those who have been traditionally marginalized
4. Organize sessions by occupation/sector, social grouping or gender to help participants feel confident and comfortable to participate. Many small sessions each for a different group of people will work better than a few large and mixed sessions
5. Follow up those you have invited to confirm their attendance
6. Hold meetings close to where participants live and work rather than making them come to you
7. Choose a “ne 5b1f utral,” non-threatening location for meetings
8. Hold sessions on different days and at varying times
9. Offer inducements for people to attend, as a way of thanking them for their time. This could involve providing food and drinks, or giving people a small gift to thank them for participating
10. Use professional facilitators when possible
11. Consider using types of gathering different to the traditional “meeting” format (such as site visits, slide shows)
12. Respect the feelings of participants through for example, having someone address the group at the beginning, welcoming them and inviting them to express an opinion, encouraging them to participate.

Nam Dinh City CDS Consultation

The Nam Dinh City CDS was characterised by extensive consultation with stakeholders, both inside and outside city government. The CDS was guided by a taskforce of local officials appointed by the Chairman of the City People’s Committee. Members included Directors of Planning and Finance, Economic, Housing and Construction Department, Home Affairs, Statistics departments, former MPC Chairman, PMU Director, PMU Project Manager, Director of UCMC and members of the provincial Department of Planning (DPI). Nam Dinh officials and leaders attended a city meeting to review the findings of the CDS Taskforce. Results of the CDS process were reflected in the City Communist Party Congress held in October 2005.

As well as involving officials, the Nam Dinh CDS involved a broad cross-section of non-government stakeholders, particularly during the situation analysis/initial assessment phase and the visioning process. A number of consultation methods were used, including:

1. SWOT workshops with local stakeholders. More than 200 stakeholders participated in the SWOT analysis in 11 workshops. Participants included: SOEs and SMEs, social organisations (including Fatherland Front, the Women’s Union, Youth Union, Trade Unions and others), students, representatives from healthcare and education sectors, CDS Task Force members, better-off residents, poor residents, community task forces, ward officials, the army, police and veterans' groups
2. Questionnaire survey with those stakeholders who could not attend the SWOT workshops
3. Direct interviews with Municipal Leaders Group, Provincial Leaders Group and Ward Leaders Group

During 2004-2005, (when developing the CDS “action planning” Building Block) more than 20 consultation meetings of stakeholder groups were organised (with the participation of more than 450 people in total), to get a broad range of ideas and engagement in the CDS. The process included interviews with many city officials.

During the visioning process for the CDS, the ideas and views of a wide range of stakeholders were solicited, including task force members and participants in the 9 city-wide visioning workshops. The facilitation of the workshops asked participants to describe what they expected Nam Dinh to be in 2020, based on four general criteria for a sustainable city.

The extensive consultation with stakeholders in Nam Dinh meant that the CDS had broad participation and input, included a range of ideas and had wide support. The CDS was an exciting exercise where, for the first time, city citizens could participate in contributing to their future and government officials could see how active the people are and appreciate their capacity to contribute. This helped to increase the level of support for the CDS and ensure that city stakeholders take responsibility for and contribute to the implementation of the strategy.

e) Incorporate consultation results into the CDS

For consultation and participation to be meaningful, the stakeholder input needs to be incorporated into the CDS strategies. There are various ways of doing this.

The broad stakeholder participation process may involve simply asking participants to develop a vision – to described their desired future for the city. A smaller CDS working group could then be given the task of developing strategies that will achieve this vision. Alternatively, the stakeholder consultation process could go a step further and ask participants to prioritise the issues that they raise and suggest strategies to address them.

Ideally, there should be enough resources secured early in the CDS process to ensure that some actions can be taken that will achieve tangible results fairly quickly. This will enable participants to see that their time has not been wasted, but that their ideas have been incorporated into the CDS and have led to meaningful change.

Example: PRISED

The PRISED (Poverty Reduction through Integrated Small Enterprise Development) project provides a good illustration of how the results of stakeholder consultations can be developed into action plans.

PRISED aims to to stimulate local economic growth, create employment and reduce poverty in rural areas of six provinces in Viet Nam, including Thanh Hoa, Quang Ngai, Binh Phuoc and Tra Vinh. The focus of the project is the support of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). The beneficiaries will be owners, managers and employees of micro and small enterprises, including household enterprises and the self-employed. The emphasis is on benefits for the poor, on rights at work and on equality between men and women.

The project will use participatory planning workshops to bring together several hundred stakeholders to agree on and plan activities. Before the workshops, the Project Support Unit (PSU) provides initial guidance on what the project could support and how to align the project priorities with the local development priorities.

The key local partners then make initial proposals to the PSU. After gathering all the proposals from partners in a province, a planning workshop with local partners is conducted. PSU facilitates the workshop discussions among local partners to prioritise the proposed activities.

Participants are divided into groups based on the specificity of their work (for example, a group of local authorities, or a group of enterprises). Each group agrees on what to select from the proposed activities, based on both the project resources and provincial needs.

After the workshop, the selected activities are again reviewed by the PSU to make sure that all the activities are feasible and within the project scope. Re-negotiation with some local partners may be necessary to revise the plan. Finally, a Consolidated Action Plan is developed, based on the stakeholder discussions.

f) Provide feedback to participants (and other stakeholders)

As the CDS progresses, it is important to keep stakeholders informed. There should be a process for providing feedback to the people who have participated in the consultation and engagement processes and to the wider community of the city.

The feedback process should explain to participants how their views and ideas are being incorporated into the CDS (or if not, why not) and outline the ‘next steps’ for the process and the outcomes they can expect to see as a result of their involvement. Stakeholders should feel that their voices have been heard and their ideas considered

For the wider community this feedback will ensure that the CDS process is transparent and will enable people to feel a sense of ownership of the process, because they understand that it is based on wide consultation.

g) Make public announcements about the consultation process

Only some stakeholders will be able to participate directly in the CDS consultation process, but many more will be interested in the results. Regularly informing the general public about the progress of the CDS – including the results of the consultation is recommended, as it will increase support for the later implementation stages of the CDS.

The ideal outcome of consultation and participation is that all key stakeholders are engaged and reach a shared understanding of what is needed and what actions should be taken. However, in reality complete agreement between stakeholders is very unlikely. The outcome to aim for is that all stakeholders feel that they have an opportunity to participate in the CDS process and that those who do feel that their views are being heard and that their issues and needs are being addressed to a reasonable extent.

How to integrate SEA processes with ‘Consultation and Participation’

SEA can help to expand the breadth of CDS consultation and participation through the identification of additional stakeholder or target groups, to identify additional issues that require some form of consultation and participation, and to provide an opportunity to focus consultation processes on long term needs.

The additional stakeholders that might become relevant when including environmental and sustainability considerations at the outset include:

• vulnerable groups who will be affected by environmental degradation
• marginalized populations such as the poor
• community as a whole who may have views on environmental trends, whether they are acceptable or should be changed
• environmental policy-makers

Some additional issues that SEA highlights the need to find out about include:

• public perception on environment problems and opportunities for sustainability
• the main environmental and social problems and gaps, as seen by the public
• possible trade-offs and synergies (win-win)
• the opportunity to establish public-private partnerships in view of implementation

Another contribution of SEA to consultation and participation in a CDS is a focus on education as a part of an engagement process, as often stakeholders or the public may not be well-informed about the environmental issues that are being raised.

Consultation processes should stress the need to balance environmental, social and economic issues and to consider the interrelationship between them. This may be done through the following means:

• Consultation processes should be structured and facilitated with the aim of enabling stakeholders to take a long-term view about the city and to ask what strategies will sustain the city into the future, rather than focussing on short term gains
• Participants should be introduced to (or reminded of) core sustainability principles, including:

- ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs’ and

- ‘the precautionary principle’ (the responsibility to avoid actions that may cause severe or irreversible harm, even if the proof of harm is not absolutely clear).

How to Monitor and Evaluate ‘Consultation and Participation’

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a separate building block, however M&E needs to be done for every building block for accountability and learning purposes. Keep records of all activities conducted and make sure that you document the process of carrying out 'Consultation and Participation' building block. This means you need to document what happened for each 'key component' of this building block and share this information with appropriate stakeholders.

Also, use the following set of questions to help you learn from doing the 'Consultation and Participation' Building Block and to provide accountability for funds spent on this building block. This is best done either through a workshop, interviews or a survey, and you will need to include the views of all those staff with key responsibilities for this building block. Consult the M&E section in this Guide for further information on monitoring and evaluation.

• What were the key outputs for this building block? Were these outputs of the desired quality?
• How efficient has the process for this building block been? In other words, how do the costs of doing this building block compare with the benefits?
• What worked well and what didn’t work so well in doing this building block? What would you do differently next time and why?
• To what extent was meaningful consultation and participation achieved?
• How were environmental and sustainability issues (through SEA processes) included?

Helpful hints

The ideal outcome of consultation and participation is that all stakeholders are engaged and reach a shared understanding of what is needed and what actions should be taken. However, in reality complete agreement between stakeholders is very unlikely. The outcome to aim for is that all stakeholders feel that they have an opportunity to participate in the CDS process and that those who do feel that their views are being heard and that their issues and needs are being addressed to a reasonable extent.