Skills for Successful Collaboration for Integrated Management of Wetlands

20 Sep, 2019

Training on multi-stakeholder engagement

Wetland site managers need capacities and skills to engage with a wide variety of stakeholders to prepare and implement an integrated management plan. This is also acknowledged in the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA) Guidelines which mention that “the condition of any wetland is an outcome of actions by a range of stakeholders, which are linked to the ecosystem in a number of ways. Management planning, therefore, needs to recognise these linkages, and build a mechanism for participation of stakeholders in design, review and implementation processes”. In this context, and in-line with the capacity development objective of the project, a three-day training on ‘Multi-stakeholder engagement for integrated management of wetlands’ for Ramsar site managers was organised on 18 - 20 September 2019 at Manesar, Haryana. The participants included Ramsar site managers of the project pilot sites - Pong dam, Renuka lake, Bhitarkanika mangroves and Point Calimere, and representatives from Wetlands International South Asia and the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) Partnership project.

The training was conducted by Dr. Petra Speier-Werner who highlighted the skills and tools needed to analyse multiple stakeholders and actor network. Learning activities revolved around conducting good dialogues, engaging and cooperating with stakeholders, conducting and moderating events and meetings, analysing multiple stakeholders and preparing integrated management plans. The group sessions required participants to work on technical themes, such as adaptive management, stakeholder analysis and phases of stakeholder dialogue and multi-actor partnerships. The participants also carried out a stakeholder analysis of their respective sites using different techniques from the training.

The sessions gave the participants an opportunity to reflect upon subjects like motivation, values, attitude, behaviour, empathy and dimensions of change. As part of the feedback, they identified target groups from their respective sites for whom such a training would be useful, and institutions where it can be offered on a regular basis.