Engagement – an overview

What is Engagement?

There are many definitions for engagement which can make it a confusing field to work in and can lead to misunderstandings between politicians, practitioners and participants!

We take a broad approach and consider engagement to encompass a whole spectrum of activities.

This covers various related terms such as involvement, communications, market research, right through to empowerment.

Beginning with this high level definition can help you formulate a wide range of activities and approaches into a coherent engagement strategy.

How does it relate to sustainable development?

Sustainable development involves effectively addressing social, environmental and economic needs. Aligning these needs can often lead to conflict or misunderstandings which is where effective engagement can help.

We want to see an institutional shift – away from hierarchical, defensive decision making – to participative, open processes that take on board the diversity of people's views.

Hands in the sand

We see engagement as a core component of realising the sustainable development guiding principle of ‘Promoting good governance’.

“sustainable measures will simply remain politically unacceptable unless we find ways to negotiate the profound transitions required with citizens.” Lindsey Colbourne, Commissioner for Engagement

What are the benefits?

The benefits of engagement include:

Effectiveness and delivery – engagement enables more informed, robust decisions, and builds potential for co-creation and co-delivery
Democratic renewal and legitimacy - through good engagement, people understand and value the necessary trade-offs, allowing for more acceptable decisions. This builds more equitable decision making processes which take into account the full range of views
Empowerment and ownership – engagement enables people to develop skills, networks, influence, and to change what really matters to them

So should the government engage fully on everything?

No! There will be times when the public (or stakeholders) will not be able to usefully inform a decision or when a decision has already been made. However, getting a wide range of opinions should help rather than hinder decision-making and strong leadership.

We feel all government policy should have some small or large scale engagement strategy whether that involves simply informing other departments of a project or conducting a large-scale public debate. If there is not an in-depth engagement process there should be a transparent, legitimate rationale for this.