Managing Community Relations and Stakeholder Engagement

Target Audience

This course is intended for a broad range of public and private sector, and civil society stakeholders involved in community relations and stakeholder engagements and working in a range of sectors including renewable energy, mining, oil & gas, large-scale infrastructure, forestry, agriculture. 

Course Aims

The course will equip participants with the knowledge, tools, and practical skills required to better understand and manage stakeholder as well as community relations and expectations.

Course Content

• Introduction to stakeholder relations and engagement planning.
• Factors influencing stakeholder relations and engagement.
• Ethics, principles and values for building and maintaining productive stakeholder and community relationships.
• Approaches and techniques for stakeholder engagement.
• Understanding and responding to different levels of community support.
• Stakeholder mapping and analysis.
• Stakeholder engagement planning and tools.
• Tools for analysing and managing conflict.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, the student should be able to:

• Describe the factors influencing stakeholder relations and engagement.
• Communicate the risks and opportunities associated with different levels of community support and stakeholder relations.
• Apply approaches to stakeholder mapping and analysis to the project context.
• Identify the approaches to designing effective stakeholder engagement plans.
• Demonstrate the basic skills and techniques required for effective communication and engagement.
• Identify, select and apply appropriate methods of engagement with different stakeholders and contexts.
• Evaluate the causes of conflict and apply approaches for managing existing and/or potential conflict at an operation.

Course Format

Online – over two weeks with self-study time and live zoom sessions of between 2-3 hours.

Total Course Hours

16 hours study time (online sessions + self-study)

About this Course

This course has been developed by Synergy Global Consulting and is delivered in partnership with the Wits Mining Institute.