Can social impact assessment improve social well-being in a future where social inequality is rife?

ABSTRACT

SIA is a recognised form of impact assessment, and is implemented in many parts of the world. The difference between emerging and developed economies provides a background to the social context in which SIA takes place, and project-scale benefits of SIA are often lost due to factors that operate at a much broader scale. Deteriorating governance and increased migration in the context of increased economic and well-being disparities are examples that decrease the efficacy of SIA in emerging economies. The approaches that have been crafted in SIA can be strategically focussed on the well-being of communities. SIA methods can be focussed on policy level which is where many future social impacts must be mitigated. The challenges that are going to be faced in the 21st Century are complex societal issues that present on scales larger than the project scale. SIA should be divorced from project-level compliance where it is often reduced to a tick-box exercise and transformed into a defined discipline that serves a strategic function at a broader, strategic scale.

Abbreviations: SIA - social impact assessment

KEYWORDS:

• Social impact assessment
• social well-being
• social inequality

Social impact assessment (SIA) is used in many countries to mitigate the adverse effects that projects may have on community, and while it is context-specific, there have been attempts to standardize the approach by producing SIA guidance documents and social standards (compare IFC, 2012; Esteves et al. 2012; Vanclay et al. 2015; NSW DPE, 2017). The body of theory that underlies the practice of SIA is adaptive, and there have been significant changes to the field to incorporate aspects such as human rights, gender, and culture in an explicit manner. Despite the aspirations of SIA, there are differences between the on-the-ground situation and what is set out in principles and guidance documents (Bice 2015), and there are also inconsistencies in the practice around the world (Larsen 2018). In some regions the gaps between policy, practice, aspiration, and reality are acute. In post-colonial Africa, and post-Apartheid South Africa in particular, people often live and work in an unequal society where poor and vulnerable people are the norm. There are places in Africa where people live an iron-age economy relying on subsistence farming and pastoralism without the capacity to generate excess (capital) and with little access to health care or education, whereas in developed economies people live with nuclear technology, and capital is based on a knowledge economy. The definition of social well-being in these different contexts will differ significantly, and social impacts will be perceived differently. There are also different socioeconomic barriers that affect the capacity and willingness of people to participate in assessment, including political influence, lack of human and financial capacity, gender, loss of community spirit and lack of environmental and procedural awareness (Zuhair and Kurian 2016). Here we consider whether the SIA approach will continue to be appropriate in these developing economies, and whether the trajectory of the non-project-related social context may evolve a different role for SIA in the future.

SIA might be used as a tool for social development in emerging economies (Aucamp and Lombard 2018), but instead, it is increasingly being reduced to a tick-box exercise to get project approval and nothing more. Although project funders are becoming more aware of the implications of social risks, they are forced to spend money on social requirements and because of the impact on profit margins, SIA is increasingly a grudge-purchase. There are many boxes to tick and requirements to meet, but spending money on social requirements does not guarantee buy-in to the social well-being of an affected community. It has become a theoretical exercise with some community participation necessitated by the time and budget constraints put in place by developers and funding organisations. Developers essentially pay experts, ‘flown-in’ from areas outside the community to ensure that the communities tolerate their projects. The experts often have limited knowledge of the culture and everyday life of the affected community, and in many cases, this deepens resentment and hostility between proponents and the community. Management and monitoring of social impacts are minimal, perhaps due to a lack of knowledge and experience, but sometimes it is due to the challenging nature of executing the monitoring in project areas. In a retrospective review, which is not required but is surely a consideration of SIA practitioners who might move through a community that was previously subject to an SIA process, it is often apparent that people are worse-off after the project than they were before, despite the best intentions of the SIA. Developers and communities will also be aware of this, although the respective perspectives probably differ. The cost to project of SIA for a developer/proponent is seen as counter-growth rather than pro-human well-being. In this camp, it is assumed that economic growth, for which each project is a proxy, will automatically lead to improved social well-being without the need for SIA.

Every nation strives towards the improved well-being of its citizens. Well-being can be defined as a state of being with others that arises where human needs are met, where one can act meaningfully to pursue one’s goals and where one can enjoy a satisfactory quality of life (McGregor 2008). Well-being refers not only to basic human needs, but also to social and psychological needs. It is an outcome that is constantly generated through conscious and subconscious participation in social, political, economic and cultural processes. Dimensions of SIA and social well-being overlap, but social well-being is multi-dimensional and is assessed at a national or broader community level (BCG, 2019) while SIA attempts to achieve similar outcomes at a project level. In developing economies conflict, lack of resources, or historic precedent negatively impact well-being, and circumstances in sub-Saharan Africa epitomise this (BCG, 2019). For reasons that operate at a scale that is much larger than individual projects, the well-being of some societies atrophies faster than project-scale developments can take it forward. Examples of this may be political instability, deterioration of infrastructure or natural fluctuations in ecosystem services such as droughts. Even more profound will be the anticipated impact of climate change that will have its greatest impact on vulnerable communities. If SIA mitigation is constrained to a project-neutral outcome at a project scale, as it often is, then small gains of a good SIA may be overwhelmed by other circumstances that still lead to the overall deterioration of well-being in communities.

The notion of SIA as a tool for social development and for improving well-being is challenged when its scope is limited to a project scale. The assertion that the cost to project is indeed anti-development, despite the best intentions, may be true at this scale. If this is acknowledged, then there may be situations in which it might be better to not implement SIA, but is it possible to determine the net outcome of the anti-development versus the pro-human balance? In order to do this, it is necessary to forecast the cost of not addressing social development issues, but the cost of not doing an SIA is only assessable after the fact and is unlikely to be measured on the proponent’s balance sheet. The cost of not considering social impacts are much wider than the project scale, and this needs to be investigated.

The world is changing rapidly. It is not socially or environmentally healthy. Despite objectives such as the sustainable development goals (UN,[sa]), social inequality at global scale continues to drive an ever-accelerating wave of economic migration. Politics shape the nature and direction of development, and politics and development cannot be separated (Dutta and Islam, 2016). The notion of ‘build a wall’ to keep out immigrants as suggested in the United States of America epitomizes a crass, insensitive approach to social inequality that deepens the well-being crisis in some regions while attempting to protect privilege in another. The future will see much greater disparities as climate refugee numbers swell, notably from the most vulnerable people from regions such as Africa, the Middle-East, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and other lower-income societies. Political changes in the United States of America and Britain, previously attractive to political refugees and seen as havens with equal rights and opportunity, means that countries previously little affected will become destinations for refugees. In theory, it is easy to welcome refugees, but the future reality of accommodating people who compete for resources perceived locally as a basic right, is that established communities will become less accommodating. Receiving migrants comes at a cost, and it is a price many ‘rich’ countries are not willing to pay. If social circumstances do not improve globally, then a ‘wall’ will be a historic symbol of inequality at continental or regional scale, and it can only enhance xenophobia, breakdown of rule of law and human rights violations, both in under-developed and developed parts of the world.

South Africa can be used as an example to elaborate the role of SIA, and the future it may face in a changing global environment. Waves of xenophobic violence blight South Africa with increasing frequency. Significant numbers of people from elsewhere in Africa migrate to South Africa, mostly for economic reasons. Many migrants end up living amongst the poorest communities, despite having skills and qualifications. Often, they are not accounted in official statistics, and they compete with local people for already limited resources. Struggles for space, jobs, and resources as well as crime are seen as the main motivation for the xenophobic violence (Steenkamp 2009; Abdi 2011; Everatt 2011). Practitioners are required to conduct SIA in this context. Projects that require SIA lead to discussions about development and beneficiaries of development and promise to bring opportunities to communities. In communities where there is competition for resources, inaccurate statistics, and few opportunities, people are often disillusioned with government and developers, or have unrealistic expectations. In this ever-changing, increasingly complex society it is appropriate to question whether SIA improves well-being and promotes social development, or if it is anti-development, especially as external changes happen faster than projects and SIA mitigation.

Inequality, combined with the ease with which social media lubricates the transfer of news/fake news, is leading to a new ideology in which the poor and marginalized see the rich as the cause of their plight, or conversely, where the rich are able to trivialize the reality of the poor. This is as true of rich vs. poor communities living in close proximity as it is of nations. Marginalized communities often mobilise around demands that are far in excess of what the developer can or should provide, but nevertheless, the collective power of a community with an entrenched sense of entitlement can stop a development. The new ideology in emerging economies often forces developers in to the role of surrogate municipalities that must provide services and benefits. Governance, or the lack thereof, is therefore a strong indicator of well-being in recipient communities. Besides the role of governance in service delivery, it also provides appropriate channels through which concerns may be raised. In areas without strong governance or where there are historical issues with industrial development not delivering on promises, communities often revert to strikes, protests and increasingly violent conflict situations. SIA is a form of project-scale governance, and the methodology can be used and adapted to such situations (Prenzel and Vanclay 2014). It aims to anticipate and prevent conflict situations but used on project-level SIA can only ever reconcile tensions at a very small scale. In some cases, the disempowerment of the SIA process is unavoidable, and it can never meet the expectations it ideally sets out to achieve.

An enigmatic aspect of SIA is that it aspires to achieve goals at a project scale that should exist at a larger scale even in the absence of a project. SIA uses a theoretical framework developed in sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography, law, and social work, amongst others, and focuses these on matters at a project level. The international principles for SIA (Vanclay 2003) synthesise this approach, but the objectives and methods are not specific to SIA. The reality is often that well-being and social development objectives exist on a strategic level, across all the disciplines that contribute to the approach, even in the absence of a project. The problems with SIA as it is currently practiced are not that it is ineffective or too expensive, that it is too big when viewed from a developer’s perspective; but rather that it is being done at a scale that is too small. The strongest indicator of poor performance of well-being is not the wealth of a nation, but rather the way in which the wealth is invested in well-being (BCG, 2019). Sub-Saharan Africa performs really badly at this – it generates wealth but does not utilize this wealth for the well-being of citizens. This is abdicated to the private sector through project-scale interventions. Complex societal issues such as governance and migration cannot be addressed on a project level but need to be addressed on a national or even international level. The budget is available at international, national and regional scale governance structures, but these structures do not know how to make the money count. SIA does! And it is not by thinking that the amalgamation of project-level SIA interventions will ever accomplish what should be the responsibility of governments. This is where SIA must move in the future.

SIA has created a remarkable, multidisciplinary social science that has a very focused capability to address development and well-being issues at project level that are often not addressed at the broader scale. What this should scream out is that SIA may fail at project scale, but this failure is not the failure of SIA, but rather a failure of higher authorities to realize the potential that the approach holds to address issues at a strategic level, with or without projects lubricating the economic growth. What SIA has contributed is a mature methodology that is tailored for on-the-ground rollout at a strategic scale, not at project scale. It has a significant contribution to make to local, regional, national and international governance.

The focused and efficient capability that emerges from SIA should, in future, be divorced from projects. SIA techniques are being refined and update continuously, and SIA practitioners are masters of adaptation due to the ever-changing environments in which they. To do this SIA as a profession needs to be empowered to deliver on its potential role in well-being and social development. It requires political will and an intervention in which the SIA practice and theory become the guideline according to which governance is structured.

The world is facing new challenges such as climate change, migration and other forcing of refugees – conflict, economic or environmental – and resolving the brewing social storm needs deeper levels of participation, buy-in of communities and governments, and long-term involvement that allows adaptive management that can use SIA methodology. Currently, SIA is operated under a set of guidelines around project execution rather than a designed set of outcomes supported by policy space. SIA must cease to be a conflation of different disciplines, and become a fully mandated department of governance: a discipline on its own. SIA needs a policy space globally to be successful. Unless we command these changes, SIA will fade into a tick-box exercise, and the most vulnerable people, those we need to protect, will continue to suffer and bear the brunt of the negative impacts of development. We need to add our voice to that of the community to demand a better future for all through our actions.