What is stakeholder analysis?
A stakeholder is any person, group or institution that has an interest in a development activity, project or programme. This includes both intended beneficiaries and intermediaries, winners and losers, and those involved in or excluded from decision-making processes. Primary stakeholders are those who are ultimately affected, i.e. who expect to benefit from or be adversely affected by the intervention. Secondary stakeholders are those with some intermediary role. In an enterprise project secondary stakeholders might include e.g. DFID, trades unions, banks, Ministry of Finance, local government, export promotion agencies and business service providers. Key stakeholders are those who can significantly influence the project, or are most important if objectives are to be met. Stakeholder analysis aims to identify and define the characteristics of key stakeholders, assess how they might affect or be affected by the activity, understand the relations between stakeholders (including actual or
