The so-called Mapping of Key Actors (MAC), in many occasions is considered as a simple agenda of possible guests for the development of participatory activities (meetings, micro-workshops and workshops), this approach or vision of the MAC in many occasions minimizes the quality of work that can be achieved with the capture and analysis of the data placed in the Key Actor Mapping (MAC).
When I developed the MAC for the first time, I took as a base the «Diagnosis of Key Actors» (Melgar, M. PROSELVA 1999), when seeing how the original «method» evolved I could realize that what was actually developed was a MAP of the social and economic structure of the actors that intervene in a given geographic area. With this, I was easily able to design a structure not only alphabetically of the interaction of the important actors in the territory, but also how they were distributed at the development sector level.
Thus, for the first time, I was able to build a map of actors by development sector and thereby structure the dynamics that make up the "institutional architecture of a given territory."
The main problem is that when seeing some process of Territorial Organization developed for the development of Territorial Organization Plans (POT), they forget that the latter is a mere tool or instrument, which will serve as a bridge for the development of the Strategic Plan for Territorial Development.
I have understood that we are wasting time in strengthening the POT framework but ignoring the importance of the Strategic Plan for Territorial Development, the MAC is one of the preliminary tools that allows us to establish by development sector (agriculture, health, education, etc.) not only the name and surname of the person in charge, but the different dynamics between each of them.
Lo que finalmente permitirá estructurar la telaraña social que compone la arquitectura institucional, con esto el equipo tecnico de ordenamiento territorial y el equipo de consultore y planificadores, podrán considerar la forma de orientar las acciones participativas en forma independiente y posteriormente interdependiente. Por ejemplo considerar el desarrollo acciones participativa (reuniones y talleres) inicialmente con el sector productivo (agricultura, comercio, etc.) para después lograr acciones participativas conjuntas donde se pueda incluir los diferentes sectores de desarrollo del territorio.
It is also important to indicate that the MAC is not a way to exclude or include people, but a way for different people to interact, I had a recent news from Nicaragua in which they informed me that a MAC was used so that political actors could exclude "Key people" of activities or to include those who were interested, this is counterproductive both for the territory and for the implementation of interactive processes that generate the adaptation or restructuring of the Land Use Plan for the Strategic Land Development Plan.
The technical team of territorial management (etot) is key for the development and validation of the Mapping of Key Actors, in fact in the last occasions in which it develops territorial management processes, it delegates 100% of the development of the MAC to the ETOT, with its variants on quality and success (Rivas Nicaragua and Jarabacoa Dominican Republic), but in the end we achieved the empowerment of the ETOT and the recognition of the key actors who were its local representatives in the development of the Land Use Plan.
For more information on the methodological framework of the Mapping of Key Actors, I invite you to visit: www.gestiopolis.com/recursos6/Docs/Ger/5-manual-de-conservacion-de-recursos-naturales.htm where it is explained in specifies the methodological steps for MAC development.
