How can we ensure that the views and interests of all stakeholders are taken into account?
Why is it relevant?
As a CO, your aim is to engage and involve the broader public in the knowledge co-production. Therefore, it is crucial for you to ensure that the views and interests of all participants are considered in decision-making processes. By incorporating diverse perspectives, your CO can generate a more comprehensive and representative understanding of the issues at hand, while also promoting inclusivity, transparency, and democratic decision-making, fostering ownership and empowerment among participants. Additionally, different people bring unique knowledge, expertise, and experiences that can contribute to more robust and innovative solutions. By valuing and integrating the viewpoints of all individuals involved, you can enhance the relevance, credibility, and effectiveness of the CO, ultimately leading to better-informed decisions and positive societal outcomes.
How can this be done?
Meaningful inclusion requires more than simply inviting participation; it demands careful attention to how diverse perspectives and interests are recognised and integrated. Joint problem-framing anchors the process by ensuring that issues are co-defined rather than imposed, taking everyone’s views into account from the outset. This prevents tokenism and lays the groundwork for shared accountability. Consensus-seeking activities provide structured spaces for participants to negotiate differences and identify common ground, aligning with analytic–deliberative inclusion approaches that strengthen ownership of outcomes. Power mapping further supports this by making visible which interests and perspectives are prioritised, exposing asymmetries that can otherwise undermine legitimacy. Finally, it is essential to identify and include missing or marginalised voices; methods for this are detailed in the Leave-No-One-Behind Toolkit (LNOB) Toolkit.
Joint framing
Joint problem identification sessions using Stakeholder Salience Mapping
Seeking Consensus
Consensus-building workshops using 1-2-4 All activity
Deliberate inclusion
Power Mapping using Chapati Diagrams
A. Joint framing
Joint framing emphasises the co-definition of problems, goals, and priorities at the outset of a CO. This early-stage collaboration generates shared language, clarifies expectations, and reduces the risk of tokenistic participation. It also builds ownership, as participants see their concerns reflected in the project’s agenda. Co-framing processes thus anchor inclusivity in the design of the observatory, rather than as an add-on (Nogueira, Bjørkan, & Dale, 2021).
One way to facilitate joint framing is through Stakeholder Salience Mapping. In this activity, participants collaboratively identify all relevant stakeholder groups and then assess them along three dimensions: power (their ability to influence decisions), legitimacy (the appropriateness of their involvement), and urgency (the immediacy of their claims). Plotting stakeholders against these dimensions creates a shared visual map of who is most visible, who may be overlooked, and where tensions or gaps in representation exist (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). In a CO, this process opens explicit discussion on how different voices are weighed, helping to rebalance attention toward marginalised groups and ensure that their views are not overshadowed by more powerful actors.
Steps:
Brainstorm stakeholder groups - Begin with an open list of all groups, organisations, and individuals who are (or could be) affected by the issue. Encourage participants to think beyond the usual suspects, including marginalised or less-visible actors.
Introduce the salience criteria - Explain the three dimensions:
Power: ability to influence the outcome.
Legitimacy: appropriateness of involvement (socially or morally recognised).
Urgency: immediacy and criticality of the claim.
Assess each stakeholder - In small groups or plenary, discuss and rate each stakeholder against the three criteria (using cards, sticky notes, or a digital board).
Plot stakeholders on a salience map - Place stakeholders visually in a grid/diagram, showing which groups score high/low on power, legitimacy, and urgency.
Reflect collectively - Facilitate a discussion: Who dominates? Who is missing or undervalued? What tensions arise? Highlight where inclusion efforts need to be strengthened.
Design actions for balance - Agree on practical steps, e.g. targeted outreach to under-represented groups, rotating facilitation, or quota-setting in follow-up activities.
The results can guide you and your fellow participants in designing follow-up measures, such as targeted outreach to missing groups, dedicated dialogue sessions for less powerful voices, or rotating facilitation methods to ensure balanced input. In this way, joint framing supported by salience mapping ensures that the views and interests of all participants are not only acknowledged but meaningfully integrated into decision-making processes.
Use this diagram to map and assess stakeholders by their power, legitimacy, and urgency, helping you identify which voices are most salient and where inclusion efforts may be needed.
B. Seeking consensus
Consensus-seeking focuses on building common ground among participants who may hold divergent perspectives and interests. The aim is not necessarily to achieve unanimous agreement, but to create mutual understanding and workable compromises. Deliberative approaches, such as consensus conferences provide structured forums where evidence, values, and trade-offs are discussed openly. These processes foster transparency and shared ownership of outcomes, making decisions more robust and acceptable.
The 1-2-4-All activity can facilitate a nuanced conversation about the different opinions that exist on a variety of different issues/topics. Rather than needing a binary yes/no or agree/disagree response from participants, this activity offers space for a spectrum of opinions and CO participants can see the layers of agreement that already exist; this creates space for compromise even when complete consensus is not possible.
Steps:
Pose the framing question - Present a clear, open-ended question relevant to the issue (e.g., “What criteria should guide the prioritisation of monitoring activities in our CO?”).
Individual reflection - Each participant notes their initial thoughts independently, ensuring all voices are captured from the start.
Pair discussion - Participants share their reflections in pairs, finding commonalities and differences.
Group of four - Pairs join with another pair to compare perspectives, synthesise emerging agreements, and note areas of divergence.
Whole-group sharing (All) - Small groups share their key points with the plenary. Facilitators cluster responses to show overlapping concerns, layers of agreement, and remaining tensions.
Synthesis and compromise - Facilitators highlight shared ground and invite discussion on workable compromises. Points of disagreement are acknowledged but reframed as resources for further dialogue rather than obstacles.
Participants see how their individual perspectives connect to wider patterns of agreement. The method makes visible where consensus already exists, and where compromise can be built, while ensuring that no single voice dominates the process. This layered approach fosters legitimacy, inclusivity, and collective ownership of decisions.
C. Deliberate inclusion
Deliberate inclusion involves intentionally bringing forward perspectives and viewpoints that are often overlooked or given less priority. This requires moving beyond open invitations to participation and instead actively seeking out underrepresented positions, whether they are marginalised by socio-economic barriers, cultural norms, or entrenched power dynamics. In the context of a CO, this might include groups such as residents from low-income areas, young people, the elderly, informal community groups, or others whose perspectives are often less visible compared to institutional or more powerful actors. Mapping whose perspectives dominate and whose are absent helps identify these gaps. In doing so, diverse perspectives can meaningfully inform decision-making. Such practices not only broaden the range of knowledge considered but also strengthen the legitimacy of the CO by showing that all viewpoints are valued in shaping outcomes (Burgess et al., 2007; Cornwall, 2008; Reed et al., 2009).
One inclusive mapping method is the Chapati Diagrams Activity, which is a participatory tool for visually mapping stakeholder relationships and power dynamics. The process validates the opinions of all participants and encourages negotiation and compromise, ensuring no group or individual is ignored in discussions and decision-making. Using this tool can act as a check for your CO to ensure that not one group or individual is dominating discussions and can help call people in to give more attention to certain groups/individuals.
Steps:
Frame the activity - Begin with a short input on understanding power — explain that circles will represent people or groups, and their size shows perceived power. Clarify that the aim is not to criticise but to surface perceptions of influence and voice within the system.
Form small groups - Divide participants into groups of 4 -6. Provide each group with paper, scissors, and markers.
Create the chapatis (circles) - Each group cuts circles of different sizes from paper. Each circle is labelled with the name of a stakeholder (individual, group, or institution). Larger circles = more perceived power; smaller circles = less perceived power.
Arrange the circles - Groups place the circles on a large sheet (or floor/board). Proximity to the centre (the issue or CO) indicates closeness of involvement; distance shows exclusion or weak connection. Overlaps can be used to indicate collaboration or shared influence.
Debrief in small groups - Groups discuss what the arrangement reveals: Who dominates? Who is marginalised or missing? How do overlaps reflect alliances?
Whole-group reflection - Each group shares their chapati diagram with everyone. Facilitators invite discussion on differences between groups’ perceptions.
Careful processing - Acknowledge that some participants may feel exposed if they are represented as having “too much” or “too little” power. Allow time to unpack these feelings, clarify intentions, and frame the outcome as collective learning, not judgement.
Identify follow-up actions - Use the insights to design deliberate inclusion strategies, e.g. giving more space to quieter actors, targeted outreach to missing groups, or mechanisms to rebalance influence in the CO.
The chapati diagrams make perceptions of power visible in a tangible, embodied way. By cutting, sizing, and positioning circles, participants externalise difficult dynamics, opening space for negotiation and empathy. With careful facilitation, the exercise validates experiences of marginalisation and creates a practical basis for more inclusive engagement in your CO.
Additional resources
The D-CENT Toolbox (D-CENT, unknown) provides a range of tools that can be used to lower the barrier to participant engagement in decision making, including open-source software for citizen notifications, collaborative policy making and electronic voting.
The Inclusive Civic Engagement Toolkit for Governments (Inclusion International, 2015) seeks to address the various barriers faced by marginalised and underrepresented groups in exercising their right to participate in civic engagement and political processes.
The Community Engagement Good Practice Guide (The Policy Project, 2020) provides guidelines for adopting effective community engagement practices, including the involvement of a broad range of stakeholders in decision-making processes
The organigraph tool (Durrant et al., 2022) can be used to understand stakeholder power dynamics, and to identify stakeholder groups that are underrepresented and less connected to the decision-making process.
References
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