Engaging Stakeholders with Evidence and Uncertainty | CEDIL Methods Working Paper 4

Approaches for engaging stakeholders with policy decisions or research tend to favour either generalisable evidence from research or context-specific evidence, including local data and tacit knowledge. Some international development and humanitarian organisations are leading the way with practice and guidance for combining generalisable and context-specific evidence for local action around the world. Some local non-governmental organisations who base their learning on local evidence alone acknowledge their lack of attention to generalisable evidence as a shortcoming. Listening to both groups has resulted in a publicly available toolkit for bringing together generalisable evidence and local knowledge. CEDIL’s Methods Working Paper 4, ‘Engaging Stakeholders with Evidence and Uncertainty: Developing a Toolkit’, offers a new framework that helps choose appropriate stakeholder engagement methods while conducting research and supporting decision-making. The framework provides the foundation for a toolkit that distinguishes major differences in stakeholder engagement, illustrates pathways for choosing appropriate methods for stakeholder engagement, signposts evidence and practical tools to support stakeholder engagement, and guidance for identifying and understanding stakeholders and their relationships. Suggested citation: Oliver, S., Langer, L., Nduku, P., Umayam, H., Conroy, K., Maugham, C., Bradley, T., Bangpan, M., Kneale, D., Roche, C. (2021) ‘Engaging Stakeholders with Evidence and Uncertainty: Developing a toolkit‘ CEDIL Methods Working Paper 4. Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning (CEDIL), London and Oxford. Available at: https://doi.org/10.51744/CMWP4