Stakeholder Engagement with Evidence

Decision-making in landscapes and socio-ecological systems is becoming increasingly complex. Competing land uses, environmental degradation, climate change, and evolving social, economic, and policy contexts create challenges that require more than technical solutions alone. Effective decisions must balance diverse interests, navigate uncertainty, and draw upon multiple sources of knowledge and evidence.

This course introduces the Stakeholder Approach to Risk-Informed and Evidence-Based Decision-Making (SHARED) developed by the Landscape Alliance. The SHARED approach combines stakeholder engagement, systems thinking, and diverse forms of evidence to support collaborative, transparent, and adaptive decision-making processes. Through practical concepts, tools, and real-world examples, learners will explore how meaningful engagement and evidence-informed approaches can strengthen planning, decision-making, and collective action in complex landscapes and socio-ecological systems.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the SHARED framework and its key principles for stakeholder engagement and evidence-informed decision-making.
• Analyze stakeholder relationships, power dynamics, and contextual factors that influence decision-making processes.
• Apply systems thinking approaches to better understand complex socio-ecological challenges.
• Design and facilitate inclusive stakeholder engagement processes that support collaboration and collective action.
• Integrate diverse forms of evidence into planning and decision-making processes.
• Apply monitoring, learning, and adaptive management approaches to strengthen engagement outcomes and decision quality over time.

Target audience

This course is designed for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, facilitators, development professionals, and community leaders working in landscapes, natural resource management, climate action, restoration, agriculture, conservation, and sustainable development.