2. Table of Contents
1. Context ................................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Problem Statement............................................................................................................................ 3
3. Purpose ................................................................................................................................................ 3
4. Discussion............................................................................................................................................. 3
5. Stakeholder strategy ......................................................................................................................... 4
5.1 Set a vision......................................................................................................................................... 4
5.2 Conduct a stakeholder mapping exercise................................................................................. 4
5.3 Preparing engagement goals, tactics, and format.................................................................. 7
5.4 Formats............................................................................................................................................... 8
5.5 Monitoring the effectiveness of partnerships.............................................................................. 8
6. Recommendation ............................................................................................................................. 9
7. References .......................................................................................................................................... 9
3. 1. Context
Partnering with stakeholders, especially those in the business environment, on shared
objectives for delivery of public infrastructure/ public services and other special projects, is
becoming increasingly difficult. In all probability, these difficulties can be attributed to the
fact that in the Western Cape alone there are 182 registered business representative
organisations, with 48 in the Heidelberg district alone, there is also a steady increase in the
number of sector specific organisations and because the big organised business
organisations like Chambers of Commerce and Business Unity of South Africa (BUSA) mostly
represent the interest of big business, the small and medium businesses, who make up the
majority of the economy, is now also organising in different associations across the City
(Expat Cape Town, 2015).
2. Problem Statement
There is no one platform to discuss common problems and shared interests with business and
other stakeholders. Also, there are so many stakeholders and possible partners out there, it is
challenging for the City to decide on whom to partner with on what programmes and
projects to get the maximum impact.
3. Purpose
This report functions to feed suggestions into corporate engagement framework on
partnering with business and other stakeholders.
4. Discussion
The City of Cape Town (CCT) recognises that it can only achieve its goals through the
collective efforts of many actors. The CCT also recognises that programs and projects
implemented in partnership increase the collective knowledge, skills, reach and experience
to an issue or challenge.
Comprehendible from above, the CCT is of the view that partnerships are mutually
empowering relationships, in which all the parties focus on mutual growth, organizational
development, institutional strengthening and above all, on achieving impact.
The CCT has many partnerships, however there is little to no strategic way of identification
and selection of partners, hence the effectiveness of the partnerships and the impact of the
partnerships are questionable.
It is thus strongly suggested that identification and formation of partnerships should be
managed strategically.
4. At the outset of partnership formation it is suggested that the City consider the following
principles:
Partnerships should be formed with organisations with shared visions and values.
Prospective partners/stakeholders should have complementarity of purpose and
value added.
The relationship between the partners should be based on transparency and mutual
accountability.
There should be clarity on roles and responsibility of the partners.
Parties should also have a commitment to joint learning on roles and responsibilities.
Extensive research identifies the following as a good range of steps to follow in the
development of a stakeholder engagement strategy. The steps are outlined below.
5. Stakeholder strategy
5.1 Set a vision
By setting a vision the City clarifies the specific organisational and sustainability
objectives it tries to achieve. This step thus involves understanding the motivation
behind engagement.
5.2 Conduct a stakeholder mapping exercise
Stakeholder mapping is a collaborative process of research, debate, and discussion
that draws from multiple perspectives to determine a key list of potential partners
across the entire stakeholder spectrum. Mapping can be broken down into four
phases:
5.2.1.1 Identifying and listing relevant groups, organizations, and people
Type of stakeholder Organisation
Organised Business Business Chambers
Provincial Small Business Chambers
Western Cape Small Business Employers Organisation
City Improvement Districts/
Special Rating Areas
Blackheath CID, Central City CID etc.
Sector specific Economic Development Partnership, Special Purpose Vehicles
Cape Town Partnership, Wesgro, Accelerate Cape Town, GTP etc.
Area specific stakeholders Greater Tygerberg Partnership, The Business Place Philippi
5. 5.2.2 Analysing and understanding stakeholder perspectives and interests
Once a list of stakeholder has been identified, it is useful to do further analysis, to
better understand stakeholder relevance and perspective.
MORRIS suggest a list of five (5) criteria to help analysed each identified stakeholder:
Contribution: It is assesses whether the stakeholder has information, guidance, or
expertise on the issue that could be helpful to the City.
Legitimacy: Assesses how legitimate is the stakeholder’s claims are for
engagement.
Willingness to engage: Assesses how willing the stakeholder is to engage.
Influence: Assesses the level of influence the stakeholder has on say for instance
other businesses, organisations, NGOs, consumers, investors, etc.
Necessity of involvement: Here one determined whether the stakeholder is an
entity that could for instance derail or delegitimize the process if they were not
included in the engagement (Morris, 2012:10).
The above mentioned five criteria will be used to create and populate a chart with
short descriptions of how stakeholders fulfil the criteria. Values are then assigned (low,
medium, or high) to these stakeholders.
Stakeholder Contribution Legitimacy
Willingness to
engage Influence
Necessity of
involvement
Business
Chambers
High:
Knowledge in
X
issue is of
value to EDD
High: Directly
affected by
our
activity
High:
Proactive
group that is
already
engaging
Low:
Relatively
unknown
group
Low: Not an
outspoken
Partner
Western Cape
Small Business
Employers
Organisation
High Low High Low Medium
WCEDP Medium Low High High Medium
TBP High High Low High High
Expertise Willingness Value
6. 5.2.3. Mapping and visualization of relationships to objectives and other stakeholders
Mapping stakeholders is a visual exercise and analysis tool that you can be used to
further determine which stakeholders are most useful to engage with. Mapping allows
you to see where stakeholders stand when evaluated by the same key criteria and
compared to each other.
Here a quadrant is drawn using two axes labelled “low” to “high”. The criteria, now
grouped as “Expertise”, “Willingness” and “Value” will be added to the criteria chart.
After the criterion is assigned to an axis, discussions and debates within the group that
determines stakeholder will have to be facilitated. This group will determine in which
quadrant each stakeholder falls. What is then left is to plot the stakeholders on the
grid using small, medium, and large circle sizes to denoting their “Value.”
5.2.4 Prioritizing and ranking stakeholder relevance and identifying issues
It is not practical and usually not necessary to engage with all stakeholder groups
with the same level of intensity all of the time. Being strategic and clear about whom
you are engaging with and why, before jumping in, can help save both time and
money. The next phase then encourages one to look closely at partnership issues and
decide whether they are material to the City’s objectives, then ranking then
accordingly. An example is illustrated below:
Willingness
Expertise
Circle size =
value
Cham
bers
WC Small
business
employer
org
B
u
si
n
e
s
s
c
WCEDP
Low
Lo
w
High
High
7. Stakeholders Issues/Main objectives Link to what objective of
the City
Priority
Ranking
Accelerate
Cape Town
Represents the views of corporate business
in the Cape Town city region by mobilizing
the collective resources and expertise of
members, and campaign for policies and
practical measures to create a robust,
sustainable and inclusive economy in the
region.
Economic Regeneration
Programme
3
Central City
Improvement
District
(CCID)
Set to enhance the physical and social
environment of the area.
Informal Trading &
Markets Programme
2
National
Small
Business
Chamber
Dedicated to the success of small business
South Africa and help small businesses to
grow, learn, network, connect, be inspired
and have fun.
Small Business Services
Programmes
1
This will assist in the identification of the most relevant issues and the most relevant
stakeholders. By working through the four steps in the mapping process a robust,
relevant, prioritized stakeholder list/ prospective partners would have been
developed.
5.3 Preparing engagement goals, tactics, and format
The Previous step (identification of the strategic objectives and prioritization of
stakeholders enables one to deeply examine stakeholders to understand their
interests, concerns, and positions) and this prepare ones better to define a choice of
engagement tactics. Here engagement tactics refer to high-level descriptions of how
one approach stakeholders/ partners. Three approaches are considered: engage,
inform and communicate.
During this exercise one will revisit the mapping to identify which quadrants
stakeholders fall into. Here it is required to re-rank the stakeholder list using the
engage, communicate, and inform tactics quadrant.
8. 5.4 Formats
Once the appropriate tactics are determined, the format of the partnership
agreements must be considered. Examples of possible tactics format relations are
shown below:
Tactics Formats
Engage (high priority)
Collaborative Partnership
Research collaboration
Communicate (medium priority)
Funding Survey
Mass email or newsletter
Social media
Conference
Inform (low priority)
Marketing campaign
Sustainability report
Publication
News coverage
5.5 Monitoring the effectiveness of partnerships
As partnerships are not an end in themselves, but rather a formation to achieve goals,
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) plays an important part in partnerships as without M&E
partners cannot evaluate their impact on the ground. To be sustainable, partnerships
Communicate
Stakeholders with a low willingness to
engage and/or a high level of expertise
but who have not yet participated in
dialogue with the City. Communicating
more with these Partners will help them
value engagement.
Engage
Stakeholders with whom engagement is
necessary.
Inform
Stakeholders who seek information only
instead of a conversation
Communicate
Stakeholders with a high willingness to
engage and/or a low level of expertise
but who have not yet participated in
dialogue with the City. Communicating
more with these Partners will help them
value engagement
9. must respond to their agreed upon goals and their own individual goals and objectives.
Indicators that measure the effectiveness of partnership will ensure that impacts are
maximised, it will provide guidance on where to improve performance, prove the
partnership’s rationale and provide feedback on meeting objectives.
An example of Partnership evaluation is the Partnership Assessment tool created by four
United Nations organisations. This tool measures the key indicator of a successful
collaborative process — the partnership’s level of synergy and provides information that
helps partnerships take action to improve the collaborative process. It also identifies the
partnership’s strengths and weaknesses in areas that are known to be related to synergy
— leadership, efficiency, administration and management, and sufficiency of resources
(UNglobalimpact, 2007:6)
6. Recommendation
Facilitate discussion on strategically selecting partners.
Input into discussions around effective and results driven business.
Propose that the ED put forward to the Mayoral Leadership towards an approach to
deliver effective and results driven business.
Facilitate a conversation on developing a system for Monitoring and Evaluating
partnerships that enforce standards, sets targets, data collection strategies and
reporting.
7. References
Expat Cape Town. 2015. Business Associations in South Africa. Available at:
http://www.expatcapetown.com/business-associations.html. Accessed on 10 March
2015.
Morris, J. 2012. Back to Basics: How to Make Stakeholder Engagement Meaningful for
Your Company. Available at: http://www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_Five-
Step_Guide_to_Stakeholder_Engagement.pdf. Accessed on 20 March 2015.
UN Global Impact .2007. Enhancing Partnership Value - A Tool for Assessing
Sustainability and Impact. Available at:
https://www.unglobalcompact.org/docs/news_events/8.1/partnership_assessment.p
df. Accessed on 12 March 2015.
