Rapid assessment framework for modeling stakeholder involvement in infrastructure development

Abstract

There is increasing global interest in the adoption of sustainable wastewater systems due to the significant human and environmental health benefits of properly treating wastewater effluents prior to being discharged into surface waters and local communities. Research demonstrates that wastewater infrastructure is sustainable only when multiple stakeholder groups are involved. Here we draw on the principles of integrated environmental resources management and sociocultural analyses to develop a framework for rapidly assessing stakeholder involvement in a proposed centralized wastewater project in Placencia, Belize. We demonstrate this framework by analyzing survey responses to measure stakeholder involvement and discuss the model's utility to inform groupings based on similarity in engagement. We employ Brainerd-Robinson similarity coefficients to rapidly assess stakeholders’ involvement and produce a consensus score. We then evaluate the goodness of fit between these scores and correspondence analysis scatterplots. We conclude that Brainerd-Robinson scores provide a rapid means for determining relevant groupings of stakeholders, particularly in resource-scarce settings. Nuanced stakeholder groupings can inform researchers, policy makers, development workers, and community organizations about ways in which individuals are engaging with a project, providing a way to target suitable initiatives to promote sustained involvement.