Chapter 3: A Community-led Approach to Addressing Water and Agricultural Issues

Introduction

At its core, the Water for Agriculture project’s goal was to better understand the conditions under which stakeholder engagement can be most effective in addressing natural resource issues – and in our case, the issues at the nexus of water and agriculture.   

As you will see as you explore this Guidebook, an important focal point of our effort was built around the organizing principles of community-led or directed engagement.  In its more general sense, community-led engagement means that we seek to imbue our communities and stakeholders, to the maximum extent possible, with the authority and agency to develop and address the issues that matter most to them through the processes by which are most appropriate for them. This section highlights several critical dimensions of this concept and some of the lessons we have drawn from implementing community-led engagement processes.  

As convenors working within a community-led framework, our job is to act primarily as advocates for good process (in partnership and service to stakeholder needs and priorities) rather than advocates for specific issue-based outcomes. This is perhaps the most important distinction between community-led and more traditional approaches to stakeholder engagement. As we discuss throughout the Guidebook, this requires an important shift in perspective and roles from the traditional engagement/convenor models – and can provide unique opportunities for creating more sustainable and effective community-based solutions to the issues that matter most to the citizens affected by them.   

Tools & worksheets

Additional resources