Great work. I think point 4 is really interesting:
4. Progress on the policy side is driving progress on the industry side and vice versa
I think this is perhaps applicable to other cause areas where a combination of industry and policy action might be helpful (e.g. corporate campaigns on cage-free chickens and policy change on the same, e.g. incentivising pandemic prevention investment).
How easy/hard was it for you to understand the incentives of different stakeholders and map their relationships?
Do you have any advice for others on how to approach this?
1. At first it took a fair bit of time to build up an accurate picture of the different stakeholders, their relationships and incentives. And I’m sure there’s still a lot more to learn. But with each new country we work in we can apply what we’ve learn in previous countires, as there are often a lot of similarities. For example, paint manufacturers in different countires might have similar perspectives, incentives, or relationships with regulators.
2. I’d advise starting by asking people with understanding of the space who aren’t the key people you’ll need to influence or work directly with (e.g. before speaking to a key policy-maker, find out the lay of the land from NGOs or individuals who work with the same government agencies or policy-makers on different issues).
Then when it comes to speaking to the key stakeholders it seems helpful to have an initial conversation that is very exploratory, asking lots of questions to understand their perspectives, relationships, incentives, etc. The aim of that first conversation is usually information gathering, information sharing, relationship building, and agreeing on a second conversation to discuss/confirm concrete next steps.
A lot of the time, an important incentive/relationship won’t become clear until we’ve developed a closer relationships with the stakeholder. In person time helps massively with this.
Great work. I think point 4 is really interesting:
I think this is perhaps applicable to other cause areas where a combination of industry and policy action might be helpful (e.g. corporate campaigns on cage-free chickens and policy change on the same, e.g. incentivising pandemic prevention investment).
How easy/hard was it for you to understand the incentives of different stakeholders and map their relationships?
Do you have any advice for others on how to approach this?
Yes, I think this probably is applicable!
1. At first it took a fair bit of time to build up an accurate picture of the different stakeholders, their relationships and incentives. And I’m sure there’s still a lot more to learn. But with each new country we work in we can apply what we’ve learn in previous countires, as there are often a lot of similarities. For example, paint manufacturers in different countires might have similar perspectives, incentives, or relationships with regulators.
2. I’d advise starting by asking people with understanding of the space who aren’t the key people you’ll need to influence or work directly with (e.g. before speaking to a key policy-maker, find out the lay of the land from NGOs or individuals who work with the same government agencies or policy-makers on different issues).
Then when it comes to speaking to the key stakeholders it seems helpful to have an initial conversation that is very exploratory, asking lots of questions to understand their perspectives, relationships, incentives, etc. The aim of that first conversation is usually information gathering, information sharing, relationship building, and agreeing on a second conversation to discuss/confirm concrete next steps.
A lot of the time, an important incentive/relationship won’t become clear until we’ve developed a closer relationships with the stakeholder. In person time helps massively with this.