The benefits of involving stakeholders in sustainable development decisions and implementation include:

Quality: Stakeholders add specific experiences and knowledge of issues that are not as easily accessible to others. Their inclusion adds to the quality of opinion-forming and decision-making (e.g. norms and standards). Paired with requiring participants to base their arguments on facts and peer-reviews, and the multi-stakeholder exchange in dialogue processes, their involvement can deliver inputs of high factual authority.

Credibility of decision-making: Inclusion of stakeholders in decision-making lends credibility to any decision because it (at least) appears to be based on the widest possible range of inputs and balancing various interests. Such credibility, however, is lost when stakeholders are merely "heard" and their inputs have no predictable bearing on decisions taken. In other words, participation needs to be meaningful, otherwise it will involve credibility costs rather than benefits. It also needs to be equitable, otherwise people will get the impression that resourceful groups are gaining undue influence and recognition of their specific interests.

Credibility of implementation efforts: Partnerships include groups that do not represent the same interests. People know that collaborating across interests groups is difficult, the result of identifying common ground, building trust, and, often, compromise. All of that, if done in an equitable, transparent, and democratic manner, can create results that gain respect and are more likely to be seen as legitimate than efforts that are undertaken by one group. This adds to the moral authority of MSP results.

Likelihood of impact and implementation: Being part of an MSP and thus partly responsible for its outcomes can increase people’s commitment to the outcomes and enhance their efforts to communicate and implement them.

Societal gains: Democratic participation, equitable involvement and transparent mechanisms of influence create ownership and support among stakeholder groups and individual citizens. Successful communication across interest groups and competitors as well as consensus-building and joint decision-making can increase mutual respect and tolerance and lead societies out of deadlock and conflict on contentious issues.

Copyright © Minu Hemmati, 2006