Stakeholder engagement: A good practice handbook for companies doing business in emerging markets

As part of IFC’s ongoing commitment to capture and share global knowledge and good practice with our clients and wider audiences, we have prepared this new and updated reference, Stakeholder Engagement: A Good Practice Handbook for Companies Doing Business in Emerging Markets. In doing so, we have drawn on IFC’s own learning and experiences of the past nine years, as well as the current thinking and practices of our client companies and other institutions. This handbook aims to provide the reader with the good practice “essentials” for managing stakeholder relationships in a dynamic context, where unexpected events can and do occur, and facts on the ground change. The focus of this handbook is on stakeholder groups “external” to the core operation of the business, such as affected communities, local government authorities, non-governmental and other civil society organisations, local institutions and other interested or affected parties. We have not addressed engagement with suppliers, contractors, distributors, or customers, because interaction with these parties is a core business function for most companies and subject to national regulations and/or established corporate policies and procedures. The handbook is divided into two parts. Part One contains the key concepts and principles of stakeholder engagement, the practices that are known to work, and the tools to support the delivery of effective stakeholder engagement. Part Two shows how these principles, practices, and tools fit with the different phases of the project cycle, from initial concept, through construction and operations, to divestment and/or decommissioning. Each of these phases presents different environmental and social risks and opportunities for the project and, as such, different practices in stakeholder engagement need to be employed and integrated into management systems at each stage.