Actors ( or stakeholders) analysis

Actors or stakeholder analysis is an important way of increasing the information you have available when making decisions about protection. It involves identifying and describing the different actors or stakeholders involved and their relationships, on the basis of their characteristics and interests – all in relation to a given protection issue.

A stakeholder in protection is any person, group or

institution with an interest in, or involvement in,

a policy outcome in the area of protection.

A stakeholder analysis is key to understanding:

• Who is a stakeholder and under what circumstances their “stake” counts;

• The relationships between stakeholders in protection, their characteristics and interests;

• How these will be affected by protection activities;

• Each stakeholder’s willingness to become involved in those protection activities.

Stakeholders in protection can be categorised in the following way:

Primary stakeholders. In a protection context, these are the defenders themselves, and those they work with and for, because they all have a primary stake in their own protection.

Duty-bearer stakeholders, who are responsible for protecting defenders, i.e.:

• Government and state institutions (including security forces, judges, legislators, etc)

• International bodies with a mandate that includes protection, such as some UN bodies, regional IGOs, peacekeeping forces, etc;

• In the case of opposition armed actors, they can be held accountable for not attacking the defenders (as the civilian population they are), specially when these actors control the territory.

Key stakeholders, who can significantly influence the protection of defenders. They may have political clout or the capacity to put pressure on duty-bearer stakeholders who do not fulfil their responsibilities (such s other governments, UN bodies, ICRC, etc), and similarly some of them may be often directly or indirectly involved in attacks and pressure against defenders (such as private corporations or the mass media or other governments also). All depends on the context and interests and strategies of each of these key stakeholders. A non-exhaustive list could include:

• UN bodies (other than mandated ones);
• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC);
• Other governments and multilateral institutions (both as donors and policy-makers);
• Other armed actors.
• NGOs (either national or international);
• Churches and religious institutions;
• Private corporations;
• The mass media.

A major difficulty with establishing which strategies and actions are being undertaken by stakeholders is that the relationships between them are not clear-cut, or may even be non-existent. Many duty-bearer stakeholders, particularly governments, security forces and opposition armed forces, cause or contribute to human rights violations and a lack of protection for defenders. Some stakeholders, who would otherwise share the same protection concerns, may also have competing interests, such as among other governments, UN bodies and NGOs. These factors, along with those inherent in conflict scenarios, project a complex picture of the working environment as a whole.