SIA Bibliography

Introduction

Social change is the consequence of almost any intrusion into the community life of any society. The intrusions can be in the form of specific development projects, or nonspecific, less tangible forms such as increased exposure to other cultures, technological change and so on. The social change that results from intrusions into community life may be beneficial, but more commonly intrusions have undesirable or negative outcomes. Even change that in the long run may have a positive effect on the social wellbeing of a community may have undesirable short term consequences.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a methodology used for examining social change due to external sources, especially specific development projects, but also government policies, technological change, and social processes - anything that has a social impact.

The Phases of SIA

SIA consists of four main phases: assessment, mitigation, monitoring and audit.

Assessment refers to the determination of the potential impacts of a specific intrusion on a community before the commencement of any change. This information forms part of the conventional Environmental Impact Statement, and is used in appraising the costs and benefits of projects for their social worth. The whole EIS, including a social impact statement, is used to determine whether approval should be given to the project.

Mitigation involves an ongoing role in the development process by SIA practitioners in order to minimize any impact that does occur. By continuing the SIA process in the development and initial stages of a project any unforeseen impact can be managed in a cost-efficient manner.

Monitoring extends beyond the role of mitigation checking that the change that occurs has been anticipated, and that appropriate mitigation strategies be developed to deal with the consequences of any unexpected impacts.

The process of SIA depends very heavily on the use of prediction techniques during the assessment phase of the project. These prediction techniques may be highly culture bound, and are of varying reliability and accuracy. Therefore, each SIA that is undertaken, especially for major projects, needs to contain an audit of methods and predictions. This is very important to develop local expertise in conducting SIAs, and in the selection of social indicators and prediction techniques that are appropriate in the local cultural setting.

Assessment of social impacts should take place as part of any project requiring an Environmental Impact Statement and/or any intrusion (project, policy, proposal or process) that is likely to have a social impact. Mitigation and monitoring should be undertaken for any intrusion that goes ahead. While it is obvious that mitigation and monitoring should be undertaken for any intrusion that has major social impact as identified in the assessment phase, detailed monitoring and audit should be undertaken on at least some intrusions identified as having low or no social impact, to ensure the accuracy of methods. It may be that some of these intrusions have hidden impacts not considered by the assessment phase. All major intrusions should encompass all four phases of SIA.

Sometimes the phases of SIA may be undertaken individually. Obviously only assessment will be undertaken on projects that are not granted approval. However, projects that are underway without government requirement for detailed EIA including SIA, can still be subject to monitoring, and possibly mitigation roles of SIA. Anthropologists and sociologists may undertake monitoring of community intrusions independent of any formal government mandate to conduct SIA. SIA can also be undertaken as a historical exercise with anthropologists, sociologists, and historians examining the impact of certain intrusions into community life in the past. There are some extra difficulties in conducting SIAs when they are not required or intended at the beginning of the planning and construction stage of the development. The major limitation is that the ability of SIA to mitigate impacts is severely reduced and therefore communities and governments should insist that SIAs are part of the whole development process. The full potential of SIA is only achieved when SIA is incorporated in the development process from its inception to well past its completion. Despite the phases of SIA sometimes being undertaken independently, the full concept of SIA is that it is a process, an integral part of project development, not an isolated step or hurdle to be overcome.

Uncertainty and Community Participation

Often, the greatest social impact of many projects, particularly those planned for community benefit, is the stress that results from the uncertainty associated with living near a major development, or by living in a situation of rapid change. By maxmizing community involvement in the SIA process, not just by consultation, but by directly involving locals in planning teams, uncertainty is reduced, the legitimacy of the SIA and the development project is enhanced, the accuracy of the SIA is increased, and the capacity for the SIA to mitigate impacts is maximized. Previous research has shown that indigenous people have made substantial contributions to SIAs even though they may not be experienced in administrative procedures.

The Value of SIA

While the requirement to undertake SIAs may seem to be an unnecessary luxury adding to the costs of projects, it is likely that there are substantial benefits to be gained from undertaking them, for governments, communities and developers. SIAs that involve the community minimize local resistance to projects, and therefore reduce disruption; they increase project success; and they prevent major planning disasters and associated costs. They may well save money in the long run. It is particularly important that governments and communities insist on SIAs being undertaken because in the majority of cases, the costs of rectifying social and environmental impacts of development are borne by the public sector, not by the corporations that created them (Burdge, 1988).

Even where there is a mechanism for extracting compensation from companies for damage or impact they may create, the compensation is likely to only cover direct impacts, and not the vast amounts of indirect impacts. In local community settings, the compensation itself would have a vast social impact. In any case, the onus of proof would rest with the community, and for social impacts especially it would be difficult to establish proof to the satisfaction of the courts. There are many impacts that cannot be mitigated or rectified. Once local cultural life is affected, it is affected for good, and therefore it is important to prevent the majority of impacts before they actually happen. SIAs, therefore, should be required of all major intrusions into community life.

The costs of undertaking an SIA should be included as part of the costs of the project and should not be borne by the government or by the local community. However, care must be taken that the standard of the SIA undertaken is to the satisfaction of government and community leaders. Some review process is required to ensure that all SIAs, and EIAs, are up to a required standard.

The SIA Task Force

The task force approach is the best model for conducting SIA. The task force should comprise SIA consultants and representatives from interested parties, including the developer and the affected community. The leader of the task force, the SIA consultant, should be experienced in conducting SIAs and should not have any vested interest in the development project or the affected community. The qualities and skills required of the leader are considerable including knowledge of quantitative methods, ability to conduct qualitative research, management skills, knowledge of and sympathy with local culture, ability to handle high level public exposure while at the same time having the ability to have low key interactions with community organizations. Research assistants and interviewers may also need to be employed, who should be selected from the local community if possible. Other experts, such as epidemiologists, toxicologists, psychologists, community development experts etc may be required depending on the nature of the likely impacts, and the nature of the intrusion.

The SIA Process

The key elements of the full SIA process (ie four phases) are:

• Scoping or problem identification to identify the major issues, problems that need to be addressed and to provide preliminary information.
• Profiling the pre-impact state of the community.
• Formulation of alternatives, general conceptual alternatives and specific development implementation strategies.
• Evaluation of alternatives by using projection, estimation and forecasting techniques.
• Monitoring, mitigation and management of the project as the project develops.
• Audit.

Scoping

Scoping identifies the type of the social impacts that are likely to be expected and clarifies the issues relevant to the project including: the frames of reference; the major issues; the key variables to be considered; the geographical area of most importance and other areas of likely impact; the units of analysis and methods of measuring or determining impact; interested parties or stakeholders (including those who have vested interests in the project or the affected community, and other groups who will suffer any impacts from the development); and identification of community leaders and spokespersons from the stakeholder groups. Undertaking a literature review to identify previous studies of a similar nature to the proposed intrusion is an important step in the scoping process which should be commenced as early as possible. Scoping is largely conceptual process undertaken by the SIA task force with assistance from discussions with interested parties.

Profiling

Profiling, sometimes considered to be part of the scoping process, involves gathering information about the community in the pre-impact state to be provide initial estimates for input into prediction models, and to provide baseline information with which to compare changes when they occur. Some of this data may already exist in the form of secondary data such as census and other government and community records, local histories, maps, newspapers and telephone directories. Otherwise, a social survey may be required to collect this essentially quantitative data. Interviewing long term residents is also a valuable source of information.

Attempt should be made to consider the nature of changes that are inherent in the cultural setting and likely to effect change on the community independent of the current development project. The likely impact of other development projects in the proximity of the current development and any cumulative impacts should be considered.

Alternatives: Formulation and Evaluation

The potential for mitigation of impacts is the greatest when the SIA task force is included in project formulation from the earliest stages possible. Issues such as the siting of the development, and the type of technology used, as well as implementation decisions such as the availability of workforce, and the location of construction workers, have profound social impacts. While these issue are often regarded as economic concerns, the costing of social impacts could easily alter economic decisions made that ignored social impacts, especially if the social impacts differed markedly between alternatives. It is important therefore, that SIA be included in the planning of the development from the initial stages.

Formulation of alternatives refers both to discussion of alternatives at a macro level, including the no development option, as well as the specific fine-tuning options during the implementation of the macro option selected.

Although this stage frequently results in no single favoured alternative due to the different interests of the various stakeholder groups, clearly undesirable alternatives are discarded, and greater imagination can be applied to the range of possibilities available. Extra expense at this stage, and the selection of a more costly alternative, may reduce social and environmental impact and be economically advantageous in the long run. It is in the responsible corporation's interests to include the SIA team at this early stage in the development of their plans.

The discussion of macro alternatives for the community is largely a community responsibility. The SIA task force would use a variety of community involvement strategies such as public meetings and community workshops to hold public discussion of the type and nature of development the community would endorse. The meetings would also determine whether the community should support the particular project being considered. The project would still require government approval.

Alternative formulation and evaluation of specific implementation strategies is a largely technical exercise where the SIA task force interacts with project engineers. Community involvement, other than its involvement in the task force, would be limited in the analysis of specific development alternatives. However, there may be situations where the the task force might consult the community in their evaluation of the specific development options.

Evaluation strategies depend on the nature of the alternatives, the nature of the development project, the nature of the likely social impacts, and to some extent the characteristics of the community. There are standard assessment models, and checklists of potential impacts that are used, although they are of varying applicability (see Branch et al, 1984).

Mitigation, Monitoring and Management

The SIA task force by its involvement in the implementation planning of the development can make concrete suggestions that mitigate impacts and maximize the potential benefits accruing to the development. The actual mitigation and enhancement strategies will depend on the nature of the development and the nature of the impacts. The major task of the SIA task force is to identify the elements of the development that can be modified in order to reduce impacts. The impact itself is the result of a stimulus (the aspect of the development causing the impact) and a response (the way in which the community responds). It is possible to change or modify the nature of the community response, or its ability to adapt to new inputs, so that potential negative impacts can become positive or beneficial features of the development (Branch et al, 1984).

It is in mitigation that SIA is most useful, and where the science of SIA is most developed. There are a range of possible mitigation strategies that are applicable to almost all developments, or that are adaptable to suit the individual needs of the specific development proposal (see Branch et al, 1984).

There is one fundamental controversy within SIA dealing with mitigation, the extent to which the non-local workforce should be integrated with the local community. Where the local community is small and/or culturally very different to the non-local workforce, it is probably desirable to have a separatist policy. Where the non-local workforce is culturally similar and in small proportion to the local community, it may be desirable to integrate them within the community, together with strategies for involving them in community activities. This often has the added benefit of reinforcing the community spirit of the local community residents. It is for the local community to decide on this issue, after they have an understanding of the likely consequences of both options.

Audit

Audit refers not just to a review of predictions or methods, but a review of the whole procedure of SIA as it was applied to the specific project. Although it is important to review predictions, in many cases predictions will be different to outcome because SIA has been successful in its role of mitigation and monitoring. This does not make the predictions wrong, nor does it make original assessments invalid. It does mean that care needs to be placed on the interpretation of predictions at the assessment stage, and during any audit.

SIA is an inherently local activity. External consultants should be employed, but the success of SIA rests on a thorough understanding of the local culture and the way the culture responds to specific intrusions. It is vital that local expertise be used in the conduct of the SIA, and that information about each project be developed so that the lessons learnt from one SIA process can be applied to those that follow.

Conclusion

SIA is an integral part of development process, not a step or hurdle to be overcome. Done poorly SIA can be nothing more than a public relations exercise for illegitimate development by unscrupulous corporations. SIA is not designed to hamper development, but is designed to maximize the potential benefit for all parties associated with the development. For the community this means minimizing social impacts on the community and maximizing community benefits. For the developer it means minimizing social impacts and therefore the costs of rectification of these impacts in the future. Effective SIA increases the legitimacy of the development, and may well facilitate the development process. SIA removes uncertainty from the process, for both the community and the developer. To a small extent, SIA reduces impacts on the workforce and has the potential to increase productivity and reduce disruption.

The effectiveness of SIA rests on the integrity of the task force. Community participation is essential, as is community evaluation of any report or recommendations. Governments should consider appropriate measures to ensure that SIA and EIA that is undertaken is to a satisfactory standard.

References and Recommended Reading

Branch K et al 1984, Guide to Social Assessment: A Framework for Assessing Social Change, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (Social Impact Assessment Series, No. 11).

Burdge R 1988, `The benefits of social impact assessment in third world development' in Hindmarsh RA et al (eds), Papers on Assessing the Social Impacts of Development, 151-159, Brisbane: Institute of Applied Environmental Research, Griffith University.

Derman W, Whiteford S (eds) 1985, Social Impact Analysis and Development Planning in the Third World, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (Social Impact Assessment Series, No. 12).

Hindmarsh RA et al (eds) 1988, Papers on Assessing the Social Impacts of Development, Brisbane: Institute of Applied Environmental Research, Griffith University.