Stakeholder Engagement, Participatory and Inclusive Approaches

1 - Limited evidence on the role of intermediaries and "civic brokers" (CSOs, community campaigners, educators) in bridging institutional and grassroots scales, and on the conditions under which their work is effective and financially sustainable. 2 - Strengthen participatory and inclusive approaches that engage diverse stakeholders, including Indigenous communities, youth, and vulnerable groups, to ensure equity and long-term ownership. 3 - Governance fragmentation and uneven stakeholder engagement limit coordinated action and reduce the legitimacy and uptake of NbS initiatives 4 - We need to improve and increase local stakeholder engagement and acceptance of Nature Based Climate Solutions (NBCS), potentially through educational campaigns or even through a systems mapping approach for coastal flood risk management 5 - These findings reveal a disconnect between stakeholder-engaged evaluation and participatory implementation. (...) (The studied cases) underscore the importance of embedding participatory mechanisms in the evaluation phase and follow-up implementation (of Marine Protected Areas). 6 - We need dedicated long-term research infrastructures, such as living labs, bringing together researchers and stakeholders that can co-design and assess solutions tailored to local contexts using participatory approaches. 7 - The issue of public participation, co-creation and co-design of NbS is also particularly important to ensure their effectiveness and correct and sustainable monitoring in urban areas. In this regard, more research on how to promote the active involvement of citizens in NbS development and management could be useful, particularly in the case where NbS concern privately owned land and vegetation. 8 - Despite the increasing consensus that citizen participation is crucial in implementation of NbS, there is limited research on the different categories of participation that are adopted, and their importance in ensuring successful outcomes 9 - The inclusion of a broader range of stakeholders, such as community members, industry representatives, and policymakers at different levels of governance, could provide additional insights into the complexities of NbS adoption and implementation 10 - In order to secure financing resources from different sources, a relevant insight emerging from our NbS case studies is the presence of stakeholders not “traditionally” associated with NbS financing. Their role has been relatively overlooked in prior research and should be further explored to promote collaboration models. (...) Specifically, these entities include corporations, the real estate sector, insurance sector and water utilities. 11 - Further research should be conducted on relevant stakeholders and rights holders who should be involved (in NbS governance) 12 - Now that there is a systematic map of how participatory scenarios are being used, further research is needed to understand the effectiveness of participatory scenarios in restoration planning. Due to the wide range of the publication base and lack of this information within publications, this would need to be done by conducting primary research into the included studies in this review with study teams and the restoration decision-makers. 13 - More research is needed to systematise the experiences of bottom-up and top-down public participation and to formulate strategies that facilitate co-production processes. 14 - Considerable knowledge gaps remain in cities as regards the development of inclusive governance models engaging citizens and local businesses in the planning and stewardship of NbS. (...) Community Engagement: the role and effectiveness of different community engagement methodologies and impact of such approaches on NbS processes. 15 - Future GI {Green Infrastructure} knowledge systems work should expand datasets to include additional methods, such as surveys (for example, social network analysis of institutional actors), as well as work to include the perspectives of residents and community groups.