Developing effective stakeholder engagement for better water governance

Poor implementation of stakeholder engagement (SE) in water governance has reduced decision-making legitimacy and damaged stakeholder relations. Current knowledge of SE remains largely conceptual and non-operational. This project aims to advance the understanding and practice of SE by explicitly assessing the value and knowledge of stakeholders, optimising stakeholder network structure, and formalising the relationship between the structure, process, and outcomes of SE. It will develop a diagnostic tool to identify critical fragilities in SE in the Murray-Darling Basin, thus improving water governance. This tool will also enable direct comparison between case studies for generating general insights into SE.