The use of the systems thinking approaches to develop a holistic model to improve stakeholder management in the eThekwini Water and Sanitation unit (EWS)

Abstract

Challenges faced by the eThekwini Municipality’s Water and Sanitation Unit (EWS) in implementing water and sanitation projects include competing interests among various stakeholder groups who see water services from different perspectives and have varying expectations from infrastructure project execution. Soft issues, including stakeholder relationships, communication, and community participation, have been ignored. The study places more attention on soft issues and relationship management since it sees project stakeholder management in the water service as a complicated and messy system. This study employed qualitative research, together with soft systems methodology (SSM), for data collection and analysis. SSM was chosen because of its flexible, but systematized, process that is useful in clarifying the issues in a problematic situation. In-depth semi-structured interviews were used to collect data in this qualitative research. A total of thirty-four participants were involved in this study. This involved conducting intensive individual interviews with fourteen participants to explore their perspectives on stakeholder management in the EWS infrastructure projects. The other twenty participants, divided into four focus groups, participated in the SSM workshop. Data was analysed using NVivo 12, which assisted the researcher in thematic analysis. The combination of qualitative methodology and SSM facilitated a meaningful interaction between the researcher and the study participants, by providing a chance for participants to understand each other’s perspectives, challenges and opportunities, in infrastructure projects. The study found that there is a lack of proper communication between the EWS officials and project stakeholders, as well as the fragmentation of social facilitation systems within the unit. This was confirmed by the findings from the SSM workshop. Stakeholder management was also identified as a crucial soft issue and the lack thereof hinders the progress and sustainability of infrastructure projects. The study, therefore, recommends the implementation of the developed holistic model and formalisation of systems. This model consists of the implementation process, which includes identifying stakeholders prior to project implementation; communicating project boundaries with stakeholders; and ensuring that project stakeholder committees are in place to enforce consistency and improve relationships; as well as ensuring that risk mitigation is prioritised.