Quality Assurance Standard for Community and Stakeholder Engagement

IAP2 has long offered valuable tools that demonstrate how and when to engage and provide insight into the principles behind effective community and stakeholder engagement.

As the field of engagement becomes more specialised, IAP2 recognised the need for a standard process for any engagement process to ensure it meets best practice principles leading to confidence in the outcome for all involved.

The standards document launched at the IAP2 Australasia Conference in Perth this week describes the important elements of any engagement process and was developed in response to requests for a set of ‘standardised principles’ to ensure consistency in quality and support those carrying out the process. It also allows any process to be audited against a defined standard for simpler evaluation and quality assurance.

This document outlines what each stage of a community and stakeholder engagement process should entail. It was approved by the IAP2 International Board in June 2015 and is now available for download here following the launch.

Special thanks to the working group of Lucy Cole-Edelstein, Kimbra White, Mark Ritch, Keith Greaves and Carla Leversedge who dedicated many hours over more than two years to develop this process. Any to the many members who input their thoughts, views, case studies and processes to help assess the standard and process. Without our IAP2 members this work could not have been completed and we thank you.

We trust these standards will be of benefit to your organisation and as always we appreciate your feedback on their application.

The auditing process is in development and we hope to have more news on that process for you soon.