by
Rabel J Burdge and C. Nicholas Taylor
The purpose of this paper is to identify those parts of the
world where social impact assessment is
required and what organizations, institutions and laws there are in place to
carry out and enforce SIA practice.
Some conclusions are drawn about expanding SIA practice. To accomplish
this purpose we contacted practitioners in
countries where large mineral, water,
petroleum and construction related projects were likely to take place or
countries with private sector companies
doing the exploration and development. We asked the following questions:
1. Does your country,
state, province or other governmental unit have legislation that requires
Environmental Impact
Assessments—e.g., NEPA style legislation?
2. If they answered yes
to the first question…” is there wording
in the legislation to include the
social impacts on the
human environment or human communities?”
3. Are there specific
agencies or governmental organizations that have a specific requirement
to do social impact
assessment? If yes, which ones?
If there are specific
requirements to do social impact assessment,
how are the regulations or
requirements enforced,
e.g., terms of references, to obtain a permit or by legally enforceable
legislation? Many
countries now have some type of environmental policy legislation modeled after
the original National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) legislation. We also received responses from the World Bank,
the Asian Development Bank, the European Community (EU), the Canadian International Development
Administration (CIDA) and the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).There are other reasons beyond a
legal or institutional mandate to undertake SIA. These include emerging approaches (a business case) aligning SIA with corporate social responsibility to minimize
social risks and increase project social benefits, including the
social license to operate and Free and Informed Consent based in human
rights frameworks (Vanclay and Esteves, 2011).
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