Social Impact Assessments and Safeguard Policies at a Fork in the Road: The Way Forward Should be Upward (original) (raw)
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Methodological and social policy issues in social impact assessment
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 1990
This paper discusses social impact assessment (SIA). Four of its methodologies are presented, and SIA's extension into social policy is touched upon briefly. It is argued that SIA, if properly carried out, is a powerful tool for evaluating major socioeconomic changes. SIA can clarify, rather than confound, issues of importance in development processes, because of the essentially pragmatic orientation of SIA. In this process, the political and legislative context of the development project must be kept in mind. S1A is at a crossroads in its development. It must develop methodologies that can integrate the multidimensional, functional impacts of large-scale socioeconomic change. To the extent that this does not happen, the emerging fields of SlA, it is argued, will fragment and fall back into their component disciplines. The paper concludes by painting a positive picture of SIA's relevance to social policy as a "hedge" against uncertainty.
Social impact assessment: The principles, criticisms and social impact variables
Every development project delivers either positive or negative impact, some even both. As emphasized by Vanclay (2003a, p.1), “the costs of development generally are not adequately taken into account by decision makers, regulatory authorities and developers, partly because they are not easily identifiable, quantifiable and measurable”. Therefore, appropriate methods have to be used to identify and categorize relevant impact. Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is widely used to categorize and analyze the impact of development policies, programs and projects. Currently, there are two sets of SIA principles available in the literature, namely the US version and the International version. This paper discusses the diverse definitions of SIA as well as the brief development history of SIA. This paper also compares the differences between the SIA principles of 1994 and 2003 version (the United States version) together with the criticisms made on both versions. This paper then compares the different sets of social impact variables written by three different parties namely the Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles for Social Impact Assessment (1994; 2003), Burdge (1994) and Vanclay (2002). Lastly, the application of the list social impact variables in designing social research will be described.
Social impact assessment: the state of the art
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 2012
Social impact assessment (SIA) is now conceived as being the process of managing the social issues of development. There is consensus on what ‘good’ SIA practice is – it is participatory; it supports affected peoples, proponents and regulatory agencies; it increases understanding of change and capacities to respond to change; it seeks to avoid and mitigate negative impacts and to enhance positive benefits across the life cycle of developments; and it emphasizes enhancing the lives of vulnerable and disadvantaged people. We analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing SIA. We assert that the SIA community needs to revisit core concepts, such as culture, community, power, human rights, gender, justice, place, resilience and sustainable livelihoods. It is incumbent on SIA practitioners to educate proponents, regulators and colleagues about these concepts, and to embed them into practice norms. Stronger engagement with the emerging trends of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); human rights impact assessment; social performance standards; supply chain management; governance; local content and economic development will improve the relevance and demonstrable value of SIA to all stakeholders.
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 1990
Even though most national governments and international donor agencies accept social impact assessment (SIA) as necessary, it is often partially, rather than fully, applied to development projects. Its adoption for planning and decision making is problematic, because some of its basic assumptions can contradict sociocultural and political traditions. A principle of modern SIA is that publics potentially affected by development should participate in assessing consequences. Because SIA models are heavily influenced by Western social liberal traditions about public participation, for instance, they are sometimes incompatible with the established social and political institutions of Third World countries. Bureaucratic rigidity and disciplinary inertia are two potential barriers to adoption of SlA. Rancorous conflict, extreme poverty, and ignorance are also factors affecting how SIA is used. Barriers to using impact assessment techniques are being overcome by attempts to integrate SIA with the general planning process. SIA therefore assumes a positive role in development planning--to be integrated with economic and natural environment considerations.
Reflections on Social Impact Assessment in the 21st century
Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal
Social impact assessment (SIA) is a field of research and practice that addresses everything associated with managing social issues throughout the project lifecycle (pre-conception to post-closure). SIA has transformed from a regulatory tool to being the process of managing a project's social issues used by developers, financiers, affected communities and environmental licencing agencies. SIA considers: benefit sharing, boom-and-bust cycles, community development, community engagement, community resilience, cultural heritage, due diligence, empowerment, gender issues, grievance redress mechanisms, human rights, Impacts and Benefits Agreements, Indigenous peoples, in-migration (influx, honeypot), livelihood restoration, local content, local procurement, project induced displacement and resettlement, psychosocial impacts, social closure, social function, Social Impact Management Plans, social inclusion, social investment, social licence to operate, social performance, stakeholder engagement, vulnerable groups, and traditional issues such as identifying social impacts and designing mitigation. SIA has learnt much over 50 years, however complex issues remain including involuntary resettlement, restoring livelihoods, place attachment, sense of place, maintaining intangible cultural heritage, and finding replacement land. Corruption, rent seeking, elite capture, speculation and opportunist behaviour are also problematic.
Social impact assessment: Knowledge and development
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 1990
The role of social impact assessment (SIA) in development decision making is a continual theoretical and practical problem. Designed as a rational means for improving the intelligence of decision making by communities and government agencies, SIA is fundamental to development. SIA is a learning process contributing to the ability of communities and societies to learn and change. Grounding SIA in sound social theory helps to ensure independence of analysis from political judgments. However, SIA is most effective in structures that allow for political mobilization and should not be seen as a substitute for public participation. Two areas of sociological research (communities and organizations) are important to understanding how assessment data are diffused through a community and used by organizations and decision makers over time.
Social Safeguards: Avoiding the Unintended Impacts of Development
Large-scale development projects oftentimes end up creating negative impacts that affect vulnerable populations with particular intensity. Projects likely to displace families from their homes, degrade the living conditions of indigenous peoples or intensify social conflicts at local levels are not uncommon. Social safeguards are intended to prevent these and other unintended impacts, and when the impacts cannot be averted, to develop appropriate measures to mitigate them. However, the practical implementation of social safeguards is plagued with a series of structural problems. The collection of stories from the field presented in this book illustrates the principles and application of social safeguards in the context of projects funded by multilateral banks, identifying key challenges in their implementation and exploring paths to overcome those limitations.
Benefits of Carrying out Social Impact Assessment or Evaluation: A Critical Reflection
Formal impact assessments of major development projects and policy interventions began with the introduction of the United States’ National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969 (Burdge & Vanclay, 1996). Since then the field has diversified into an increasing number of specialized forms of practice, such as social impact assessment (SIA) and environmental impact assessment (EIA) (Pope, Bond, Morrison-Saunders, & Retief, 2013). Although SIAs (Social Impact Assessments) have previously been undertaken as part of EIAs (Environmental Impact Assessments), recent research regards SIA practice as distinct from that of EIA (Esteves, Franks, & Vanclay, 2012). An SIA of a project aims to play a significant role in social justice, local engagement and international social performance standards, such as the principles of free, prior and informed consent. However, the issues and themes that challenge the benefits of an SIA have been the subject of ongoing reflection and debate (Pope et al., 2013). The question of who amongst communities, governments, project proponents or consultants really benefit from an SIA being carried out has recently been raised by development scholars and practitioners. In this essay, I will argue that, although SIAs have a vast potential to provide social justice to impacted communities, it is not the communities who really benefit from SIAs because of the embedded politics in SIA processes. To address these issues, the essay will firstly highlight the theoretical basis of SIAs to promote social justice for targeted communities. This will be followed by a critical discussion of the politics of SIAs, which will point out what makes SIAs inherently political and how such politics are played out for the own interests of SIA actors instead of promoting social justice. The next section engages in a more focussed discussion of the realities of practice and, in doing so, it will highlight the consultancy industry as the main beneficiary in the execution of SIAs. Finally, the essay presents a case study from Canada to support the argument that it is not the communities, rather it is the consultants who directly benefit from SIAs.
The paper presents an analysis of the concept of Social Impact Assessment (SIA)focusing on the approach, importance, challenges and the policy implications of conducting SIA. The research was conducted by reviewing relevant journals related toSIA accessed through library and internet sources. The stages involved in conductingSIA include description of proposed project, scoping, establishment of baseline,assessment and evaluation of cumulative social effects,formulation of alternatives,development of mitigation plan and course of actions. The SIA process is approachedby mostly using the cause-effect model backed by a variety of data collection tools likeexpert opinion and community consultations. The realisation of the benefits of SIAdepends on a well organized consultation process and the implementation of mitigationmeasures supported by a clearly defined conceptual framework and well establishedinstitutions.