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A stakeholder analysis

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There are a number of ways to do a stakeholder analysis. The following uses a straight-forward methodology, which is key to getting good results in analyses and decision making processes.

When assessing protection processes it is important to look at them with an adequate time perspective and always take into account the interests and objectives of all stakeholders involved.

A stakeholder analysis in four steps:

1. Identify the wider protection issue (i.e. the security situation of human rights defenders in a given region within a country).

2. Who are the stakeholders? (Namely, which are the institutions and groups and individuals with a responsibility or an interest in protection?) Identify and list all stakeholders relevant to that protection issue, through brainstorms and discussions.

3. Investigate and analyse the stakeholders’ characteristics and particular attributes, such as responsibilities in protection, the power to influence the protection situation, aims, strategies, legitimacy and interests (including the will to contribute to protection).

4. Investigate and analyse relationships between stakeholders.

After undertaking this analysis, you may wish to use a matrix like the following.

Place the list with all stakeholders relevant to a well-defined protection issue in a matrix (see Chart 2): Repeat the same list in the first column and along the first row. After this, you can undertake two kind of analysis:

  • To analyse the attributes of each stakeholder (aims and interests, strategies, legitimacy and power), fill in the boxes in the diagonal line where each stakeholder intersects with itself:
For example:
you can place the aims and interests and strategies of armed opposition groups in the box “A”.
  • To analyse the relationships between stakeholders, fill in those boxes that define the most important relationships in relation to the protection issue, for example, the one which intersects between the army and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in box “B”, and so on.

After filling the most relevant boxes, you will have a picture of the aims and strategies and interaction among main stakeholders in relation to a given protection issue.

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