Hello, this is Cynthia from Think team!
Recently, I did a stakeholder mapping to indicate which stakeholders that we should engage throughout our research project TIPPING+. Actually, there are many categorisations if we want to classify them. In this blog, I will explore the types of stakeholders based on our former research project, TRANSrisk, while working on identifying how the penetration of biogas works in Indonesia.
Using the framework of system map, this tool defines boundaries in which actors operate according to technology development. This map classifies three environments: the technology ‘market chain’, the ‘policy environment’, and the ‘business environment’. The environment of market chain refers to the actors involved in making and transacting a particular product or technology as it is developed, transformed and moved from primary producer to final consumer. The actors include in this environment, for example, research labs, producers, input suppliers, processors, traders, sellers and end-consumers. In biogas system of Indonesia, we identified Yayasan Rumah Energi (YRE) as one of the main actors leading the small-scale biogas development in Indonesia.
The second boundary, ‘business environment’ includes service providers, large competitors and society at large to support the overall functioning of the market chain. For instance, YRE usually works closely with HIVOS to secure the availability of financing the biogas installation. Instead of 100%-subsidy driven, YRE and HIVOS develop a biogas development program since 2009, namely BIRU, that introduces multi-finance scheme. To implement the program, it is financed by carbon credits, donors and the contribution from the biogas user. These two actors work hand-in-hand to ensure the proper usage of the technology, given that many end-users are smallholders. The third, policy environment refers to governments and policy-makers that affect the entire market chain, even possibly drive change in other two environments. For biogas case in Indonesia, it involves Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ministry of National Development Planning, local governments, and so forth.
After identifying the actors that you want to engage during the project, you want to know what level of engagement that you want the actors involved in. The common matrix that is used to identify the level of engagement is based on the power and interests of the respective actors. This methodology (illustrated in the Figure below: x-axis: the current either potential interest or stakes given the actors. y-axis: the stakeholder’s current and potential power to influence, block or change the system of reference.
Commonly, scoring from 1 to 3 could be helpful to determine the level of both power and interest. For better justification in giving the score, this involves reading some reports or media to see how the actors’ position regarding the system of question. For instance, YRE could be justified as high power and high interest given that the actor eagerly promotes biogas installation and has high technology penetration. Therefore, doing research focusing on biogas, shall collaborate with YRE.
Hopefully, this is useful. See you on other blog 😉
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