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Food environment stakeholder power analysis at UCC
UCC’s FOODPATH team recently invited the rest of our colleagues on the Food Policy Research Team to join us for a workshop to discuss which stakeholders would be best placed to help us improve food environments in disadvantaged areas of Cork city. This stakeholder power analysis will be used in conjunction with the results of our Group Model Building sessions, to identify leverage points for change in local food environments.
Following the success of the Group Model Building sessions in Ede, led by the FOODPATH team in Wageningen University, the teams in Ireland, Belgium and Poland are now getting ready to start their own GMB sessions. As part of the preparation process, each team is conducting a stakeholder power analysis in their own area to identify the people and groups with the power to bring about change in our areas.
Our colleagues in Poland identified the open source platform PolicyMaker 5 as a useful tool for conducting the power analysis, and the Netherlands team then trained the rest of the group on the use of this tool.
At our workshop, we pooled our knowledge of stakeholders in the Cork area, drawing on work previously done for the FEAST project, and also new data gathered for FOODPATH. Using the PolicyMaker tool, we used discussion and consensus to map each stakeholder’s power and the extent to which we think they are likely to support the goals of FOODPATH.
As well as informing other tasks in FOODPATH Work Package 1, the stakeholder power maps will also be included in a report on the Group Model Building process led by the team in Wageningen, and will summarise the processes and findings from all countries.