Reflections on Social Impact Assessment in the 21st century

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, psycho-social 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

University social responsibility in the context of economic displacement from the proposed upgrading of a higher education institution:The case of the University of Groningen Yantai campus

Around the world, especially in rapidly developing countries, many higher education institutions of various forms are being established. In China, many new universities have been created, including by upgrading existing tertiary education institutions. This process creates economic displacement, with livelihood consequences and social impacts on existing employees and local communities. Using the proposed (but now cancelled) University of Groningen campus in Yantai, China, as a case study, we consider the social impacts that were experienced, or were likely to be experienced, by the employees of the pre-existing institution. Existing employees experienced many negative impacts from economic displacement. They were not satisfied with the compensation offered, their views and interests were not adequately considered, and many were afraid to express their concerns. The institutions involved in the project failed to fulfil their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) obligations to ensure no harm

Evaluating the effectiveness of a national environmental and social impact assessment system:lessons from Uganda

We consider the adequacy of the legislative and administrative provisions for environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) in Uganda. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) legislation was enacted in Uganda in 1995. Although it was intended that social impacts would also be considered, the nomenclature, organizational culture and practice of EIA has given an over-emphasis to biophysical issues, with social issues being under considered. Lack of explicit instructions about how to assess social impacts and the positioning of ESIA too late in the project cycle limit the ability of social issues to be properly considered. From document analysis, an on-line survey, in-depth interviews, reflexive practice, and a literature review, we found that there was inadequate public participation, poor follow-up, low levels of capacity in all stakeholders, and political interference in the project approval process. To improve the effectiveness of ESIA in Uganda and other developing countries, we make recommendations to address the challenges facing ESIA practice

Critical Landcare

This collection of papers analyses the sociological context of landcare and ways of evaluating and facilitating landcare. Topics discussed include rural gender relations and landcare, and sustainability and change

Universities Need a Social License to Operate and Grow:Reflecting on the University-Community Engagement of two Transnational Universities

Transnational higher education is big business. However, it is unclear what transnational universities must do to behave in a responsible way or to gain a social licence to operate. Examining the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), we discuss what universities could do to gain approval from host communities. They have to meet home and host country regulations, and the expectations of local communities and other stakeholders. Consideration of their social licence and of the negative and positive social impacts they create will contribute to their reputation and ability to access local knowledge. To earn a social licence to operate and grow, universities must understand and respond to their local context, share benefits with local communities, and have effective community engagement practices. In the universities we studied, there was limited information provided to community stakeholders and poor stakeholder engagement. However, high levels of trust from residents existed, partly because of the good reputation of universities generally.</p

Barriers to Enhancing Disaster Risk Reduction and Community Resilience:Evidence from the L’Aquila Disaster

Building sustainable and resilient societies is a multidimensional challenge that affects achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In crises and disasters, civil protection authorities typically use emergency powers and a command-and-control approach to manage resources and to design and implement disaster management interventions. They centralise knowledge, technologies and responsibilities for prevention, mitigation and monitoring, while stifling the capacities of local communities to reduce disaster risks and impacts. The mechanism they enact leads to a poor understanding of the capacities of local people to learn and transform, and of how community wellbeing, vulnerabilities, and resilience influence disaster risks. The mechanism does not strengthen the role of local communities in disaster risk reduction. Instead, it facilitates disaster capitalism at all levels of society. Drawing on the disaster risk reduction and resilience paradigm and on our analysis of the disaster management interventions conducted before and after the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, we discuss the main constraints to implementing the four Priority Areas in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: (1) Understanding risk in its multiple dimensions; (2) strengthening disaster risk governance; (3) investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience; and (4) enhancing preparedness and build back better in response, recovery and reconstruction. We discuss how top-down, emergency-centred civil protection approaches create second disasters, and fail in all four priorities. We suggest that shifts in paradigm and investment are required in disaster management and development practice from centralised civil protection systems to decentralised, socially sustainable community empowerment systems

Is free, prior and informed consent a form of corporate social responsibility?

International organizations are increasingly including Indigenous peoples' rights and the concept of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in their guidance documents, codes of conduct, and performance standards. Leading companies are adjusting their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Performance frameworks to include a human rights based approach for engaging with Indigenous communities. Arguably, insufficient attention has been given to the normative, conceptual and practical differences between CSR and FPIC. The voluntary and instrumentalist character of CSR is not readily compatible with the basic tenets of human rights. While CSR is primarily applied by companies to reduce risk associated with societal opposition and reputational harm, FPIC is a mechanism to ensure respect for Indigenous rights relating to land, use of resources, and self-determination. CSR and FPIC thus serve different purposes, as reflected in their positions on issues such as: economic development; stakeholder management; the role of the corporation vis-a-vis the state; and the responsibilities and accountabilities of corporations. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p

The possibilities and limitations regarding the use of impact evaluation in corporate social responsibility programs in Latin America

Purpose: Improvement in the evaluation methodologies used in the public policy and development fields has increased the amount of evidence-based information available to decision makers. This helps firms evaluate the impacts of their social investments. However, it is not clear whether the business sector is interested in using these methods. This paper aims to describe the level of interest in, knowledge of and preferences relating to the impact evaluation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs by managers in Latin American companies and foundations. Design/methodology/approach: A survey of 115 companies and foundations in 15 countries in Latin America was conducted in 2019. Findings: The results indicated that most respondents believed that quantitative impact evaluation could address concerns about CSR program outcomes. However, monitoring and evaluation were primarily seen to be for tracking program objectives rather than for making strategic decisions about innovations to enhance the achievement of outcomes. Decision-making tended to respond to community demands. The main challenges to increasing the use of impact evaluation were the lack of skills and knowledge of management staff and the methodological complexity of evaluation designs. We conclude that there needs to be increased awareness about: the appropriate understanding of social outcomes; the benefits of evaluation; when impact evaluation is useful; how to prepare an evaluation budget; and the effective use of rigorous evidence to inform program design. Originality/value: Acceptance by the business sector of quantitative measurement of the social impact of CSR programs will lead to improved outcomes from social investment programs

Socially-Tolerated Practices in Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Reporting:Discourses, Displacement, and Impoverishment

Normative guidelines for addressing project-induced displacement and resettlement have been successful in coercing companies and practitioners to comply with international standards and local requirements. However, good practice has not always been effectively implemented, leading to reduced social wellbeing of people in local communities. We assess how the reciprocal relationships between institutional norms and practitioners' situated perspectives about company-community interactions can improve social management practice. Drawing on Hajer and Versteeg's method of environmental discourse analysis, discussions and storylines about a mining project in Mpumalanga in South Africa were assessed against contextualised discursive conventions in the mining industry. It was found that practitioners learn to manipulate legislative requirements, which ultimately perpetuates the impoverishment of project affected communities. The question is not whether or not practitioners understand the requirements of environmental and social management, but the extent to which such understandings are manipulated for corporate gain as opposed to social good. We consider practitioner rationalities about the purpose and function of environmental and social management, and how it is implemented. We suggest that practitioners and companies should construct positive aspirational identity perspectives about social management that would transcend from their current limited view (that achieving minimum compliance is sufficient) to aspiring to achieve better social development outcomes for all, especially the most disadvantaged. This requires a genuine commitment to obtaining and maintaining a social licence to operate, perspective transformation, a commitment to inclusiveness, and increased capacity for critical reflection

Conceptualizing community resilience and the social dimensions of risk to overcome barriers to disaster risk reduction and sustainable development

Crises and disasters are windows of opportunity to learn and transform toward enhancing disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience. However, a poor understanding of community resilience and the social dimensions of risk, the lack of a methodology to engage and empower resilience in society, and business-as-usual together limit the implementation of effective DRR and resilience-building strategies. In this reflection paper, we discuss the main elements of the DRR and resilience paradigm. By analyzing the failures in disaster management, we identified the cultural and political barriers to enhancing DRR and community resilience as being: a paternalistic social protection culture; and the command-and-control approach to knowledge and resources for risk reduction. We reflect on the implications of this for sustainable development and argue that building a glocal culture of community wellbeing and resilience and a socially sustainable risk governance is needed to overcome the cultural and political barriers to DRR and sustainable development