Stakeholder management in the water sector: the cases of water user association

Water management in irrigation and in water supply and sewage sector is an essential factor for the sustainable development of the water management sector. The main purpose of this research is to create an innovative methodological framework for stakeholder identification and classification in water management sector. The stated purpose will contribute to theory by enriching the knowledge of stakeholder analysis towards water resources management fulfilling also the gap of implementation for this type of analysis in the literature specifically for WUA and WSSA entities. Beside scientific theoretical perspectives the research offers also a contribution to practice by facilitating decision makers and managers in the water sector by using a standardized methodological framework for stakeholder identification and classification of WUA and WSSA. For organizations in general stakeholder analysis is a hypothetic rule for leading them in the success of the firm. Literature review has included a wide range of research articles in stakeholder management in the context of stakeholder analysis by explaining different methods and techniques of different authors; on the other hand there is a limited number of papers in stakeholder analysis of water resources management or either natural resources and even less specifically for WUA and WSSA. The study was developed through case study method in the Lushnja WUA and Tirana WSSA consisting of qualitative data. These data consist of real evidences assembled mainly by water managers deriving an original contribution to the research knowledge. Basing on the results of research was identified and classified the definitive, expectant and latent stakeholders of WUA and WSSA. However the main finding of thesis was assessing the usability and relevance of a method and technique aimed at identifying and classifying relevant stakeholders in the WUA and WSSA, which can serve as directive framework for water managers in the sector. This method can be easily adapted and employed in other similar countries and regions