Creating policy alternatives using stakeholder values

Choices that require multiple stakeholders to balance conflicting objectives are among today’s most controversial decisions. Although many techniques exist for helping decision makers to select among projects, little attention has been given to processes for identifying improved alternatives based on clearly articulated stakeholder values. In this paper the authors describe a general process to inform controversial social decisions by first structuring stakeholder objectives and then using this information to create policy alternatives. They also report the results of a workshop in Sabah, Malaysia which used the proposed approach as the basis for multiple stakeholder negotiations.