SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT AS A NEGOTIATION TOOL
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show how stakeholders may use the information
produced in SIA to establish priorities, negotiation strategies and to identify options
that may result in mutual benefits.
Introduction
Social impact assessment is a technique commonly defined as a process of
identification and evaluation of the future consequences of actions taken as a
result of the planning and construction of a project. The impact assessment
community is moving to complex forms of understanding social preferences,
actors´ behaviors, and how actors use their resources as constraints or
opportunities for action (Becker, 2003).
In this paper we propose the use of a particular orientation of SIA to generate a
better understanding of how the project affects stakeholder interests and how
different stakeholders may use the information produced by SIA on the negotiation
process required for project approval and construction. For this purpose we use
information from a study conducted in four municipalities of Oaxaca, Mexico during
a social impact assessment of a hydroelectric power plant.
Changing the focus of social impact
According to the current definition used by the international community of social
impact evaluators, a social impact assessment refers to the analysis, monitoring
and management of “the intended and unintended social consequences both
positive and negative of planned interventions… and any social change processes
invoked by those interventions” IAIA 2003: P2. This perspective stresses the
importance of measuring consequences and social change. From the perspective
of negotiation theory, this is a very broad definition that fails to inform decision
makers and stakeholders, whose interests are being affected by a particular
project, how deep are the impacts felt by different stakeholders, and what are the
key conflictive issues during the different stages of the project.
Thus, even if the social impact assessment produces a broad understanding of
how the project may induce changes in social processes at the local or regional
level, stakeholders still do not have enough information about the configuration of
interests groups, or about the options available in multiparty negotiation processes.
To properly address this situation, we propose the use of an Interest Based Social
Impact Assessment (IB-SIA) which we define as a variation of conventional
techniques focused on identifying how different players may feel affected by the
project. In other words it is a process of assessing issues that are relevant for a
broad constellation of stakeholders and how they perceive their interests affected
by the impacts a project may have on each issue.
Components of an IB-SIA model
An interest based social impact assessment uses information not only to identify
expected social changes in a particular region, it seeks to understand the
configuration of stakeholder interests and how they are affected by the different
components of the project. Given this orientation, the process may be organized in
the following five components which need not be sequential stages: statistical
information gathering, social surveys and field work to identify stakeholder
configurations, participatory evaluation techniques, stakeholder group affiliation
modeling, and interest impact evaluation. The following case illustrates the
challenges and contributions each component of the evaluation contributes to the
understanding of how interests are affected.
Method and case study findings
Interest based social impact assessment may be defined as a process oriented to
the identification of issues and players involved on a particular intervention and the
identification of options to reach consensus on how to manage positive and
negative impacts with the aim to increase the general social well-being without
leaving a particular stakeholder interest without compensation of possible negative
impacts. It requires a complex modeling process of issues and players and how
they are interconnected without the project as well as the changes that a project
may induce to this issue-stakeholder matrix. In a study conducted in Oaxaca
Mexico we used this approach by dividing the process in five major components.
Statistical information gathering. While existing statistics may be of less than
optimal utility to move towards the goal of modeling a map involving issues
stakeholders and perceptions about costs and benefits for each issue-stakeholder
intersection, it is good to have a broad perspective of key variables measuring
social dynamics and how large social processes are distributed in space and time.
We used census data and other public information such as voting patterns and
crime rates to get a broad picture of social processes in four municipalities.
Social surveys. Interviews were conducted to identify social preferences
regarding several issues potentially related to the project.
Fieldwork to identify stakeholder configurations. Interviews and focus groups
were used to exchange information about the project, identify issues and which
groups could feel affected by the different consequences of the project.
Participatory evaluation techniques. Focus groups were used to assess the
validity of a hypothetical structure of social dimensions to be affected by the project
according to the perspective of local residents of different social backgrounds. After
two focus groups, the dimensions used in table 1 were established as key aspects
to evaluate local interests.
Stakeholder group affiliation modeling. Using all the available information, a
structure on “N” interest groups was identified. For this purpose each interest group
was identified assuming commonality of key interests which in turn were assessed
as the social impacts of the power plant.
Interest impact evaluation. Using a Likert scale, the impact on each issue and
stakeholder group was assessed to produce a map of possible areas of conflict
and cooperation. As shown in Table 1, more controversy exists on the issue of the
impacts of changes in infrastructure, but the most contested issue from the
standpoint of project developer is health exposure where different stakeholders
may present some disagreement on the scale of the impact, but most of them tend
to see it as a negative impact.
Table 1
OUTCOME OF INTEREST BASED SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESMENT OF POWER PLANT IN
OAXACA, MEXICO
Players
Issues
Self
confidence
Confianza en poder influir el
and futuro
optimism
(CFU).
Poverty and
basic
needs
Eliminación
de privaciones
básicas (EPB).
alleviation
Demographic change
and everyday life
Cambios demográficos y en
changes
formas de vida cotidiana (FVC).
20
18
Dueños
de
Land owners
of
parcelas con
parcels with land
cambio de uso
use
change
de
suelo
16
14
12
Conflict and
collaboration
dynamics
Dinámicas de conflicto y
cooperación (DCC).
10
8
Local
government
performance
6
Desempeño gubernamental y
programas públicos (IDG).
Las maneras como participan
Participation
distintos
segmentos de la
población (PCP).
forms
by social
group
4
2
Oros residentes
Other
in
de
Paso residents
de la
community nearest to
Reina
Interest
impact scale
irrigación
1-20 where
construction site
Land owners
Propietarios
de of
tierras
potentially irrigated
suceptibles
parcels de
Linguistic and
Cambios en aspectos de
cultural
changes
lingüísticos
y culturales
(LYT).
0
Other agriculture
Otros
employers and
productores
workers
acgropecuarios
Inhabitants
Habitantes
delof
communities
in
corredor
La
access corridor to
huichicata-La
humedad
construction site
Habitantes
de of
Inhabitants
otras
communities on the
comunidades de
lower river
margenes
del basin
rio
agias abajo
Familas
con
Families with
población
working en
age
edad de trabajar
members
Changes in
Los
cambios observados en los
infraestructure
servicios la infraestructura y el
equipamiento
(SIE).
and
public
service
facilities
Production
structures
Cambios en sus estructuras y
prácticas de producción (EPP).
Propietarios
Retail and con
service
establecimientos
industry
comerciales o de
entrepreneurs
servicios
1 to 10
equals
negative
impact
11-20
positive
impact
Religious
Grupos
religiosos
groups
Financiamiento del
Financing,
insurance
desarrollo, indemnizaciones
y
aseguramiento de inversiones
and
economic
y activos
productivos,
sociales
y ambientales (FIA).
compensation
Riesgos ambientales (RAM).
Environmental
risks
Salud, exposición a
Health,enfermedades
exposure
y seguridad
to
pública (SAL).
contagious diseases
and public safety
Cambios en la interacción
económica y social
intraregional (DER).
Socioenvironmental
practices and
processes
Cambios socioambientales
(DSA).
Regional
economic
integration
Local participants
Participantes
locales
en
in environmental
grupos
groupsde
activismmo
Lideres
deof
Leaders
grupos
de
environmental
activistas
groups
Lessons and policy implications
Focusing SIA on the evaluation of stakeholder group affiliation and how
stakeholders´ interests are affected by a particular project has several advantages
if the study is used to prepare for actual negotiations required during the planning
and construction of large hydroelectric power plants. Based on the findings of the
case study conducted in Mexico, we argue that IB-SIA can make better
contributions to the negotiation processes by making improvements in seven
aspects of the assessment procedure:
1. Information scope and quality. The evaluation may be less concerned with
quantitative measuring of social changes and pay more attention to understanding
of social dynamics at different scales. Though the use of different techniques of
participatory evaluation it may place the expected social impacts of a project in
relation to other social changes taking place in a region such as international
migration, the adoption of individualistic attitudes towards property and political
participation, democratization and even technological change. The assessment
should produce good information for decision makers on two important aspects:
who are the players and what are the issues they care about, in order to have a
proper map of what Becker (2003) calls salience of the issues, which is an
approximation of “the willingness of the stakeholder to push his position in the
decision making” (Becker, 2003: 136).
2. Stakeholder involvement on the assessment. To properly conduct an IB-SIA
process, stakeholders need to be incorporated from the very beginning of the
process and efforts need to be made to increase the capacity and opportunities of
different social groups to be part of the process, to properly represent their
interests and to be able to assess how a project may have positive or negative
impacts on different interests they may have in the short, medium and large term
ranges. An IB-SIA process should help the stakeholders to develop their own
evaluation of the trade-offs created by the impacts of a project, so they can have a
better understanding whether the project will result in positive or negative impacts
in the long run, not only individually but at the larger social level. For this kind of
appropriation of the process to take place, the IB-SIA method needs to be open to
the public since the early stages, participation should be based on a democratic
principle not only oriented to facilitate the participation of existent representatives
of recognized group identities that may even be chosen in advanced as suggested
in a OECD document (OECD, 2010); and information should be shared with the
public stressing the relevance of considering all sorts of impacts.
3. Legitimacy of findings. Because SIA is commonly conducted by a team of
experts hired by the developer and the results of the study are presented to a
regulating government entity for project approval, the resulting findings may be
regarded by different stakeholders as lacking the legitimacy needed to properly
search for viable options on how to deal with social impacts. To change this
situations, research groups need to be open to acquire knowledge not only from
technical or otherwise state produced information, but also to incorporate different
forms of local knowledge regarding what are the relevant dimensions of social
dynamics affected by the project, and what do they think about such changes. For
example, from the stand point of a female household head with no prospects for
direct economic compensation from the project, the economic impacts of the
project are less attractive than how the project changes the distribution of
environmental services provided by the river. An IB-SIA may help to increase
legitimacy by opening up the process to different forms of citizen participation that
may start with the selection of who does the research and how those who do the
research report to different stakeholders.
4. Impact modeling. Rather than focusing on how a project impacts social
changes in general, the IB approach to social impact assessment emphasizes the
need to understand social dynamics based on an extensive use of local
knowledge, local discourses and emerging individual and community values and
practices. For example rather than just looking at the individual affiliation to an
indigenous group and simply assuming that all indigenous persons share a
common interest, the IB-SIA assessor may want to consider new information
generated on interviews regarding how indigenous household heads who have
experienced a temporal income increase or have a different labor experience use
their resources to redefine their relationship with the community and how an
income increase is processed for everyday decision making where each decision
may be placed along an individualistic-communitarian continuum. For an IB-SIA
assessment what matters most is how a project affects interests of real actors
(Scharpf, 1997).
5. Understanding controversy. By focusing on whose interests are affected by a
project, and what positions different players have regarding the interests they
perceived as been positively or negatively impacted, the IB-SIA approach may help
each stakeholder, and project managers in particular to have a better
understanding of stakeholders constellations, and whether a particular stakeholder
is more oriented towards collaborative decision making or towards controversy and
opposition. The main contribution made by the IB approach is a matrix that let
project managers to identify on which issues stakeholders differ more and on which
issues they agree upon, and whether such agreement is closer or farther from its
own interests, thus he or she may be able to identify negotiation strategies and
options to reach a consensus.
6. Mitigation, prevention and compensation as negotiable options. The aim of
an IB-SIA is not to eliminate conflict from the decision making process but to find
better options on how to deal with controversial issues and to help stakeholders to
identify options for consensus building. Mitigation, prevention and compensation
options are regarded as negotiable items in multiparty negotiations where
stakeholders are free to express their preferences and reach consensus by
creating and exchanging value in accordance with their own interests. In this
regard the assessment process should provide information that may help the
different stakeholders to have a better understanding of the implications of
decisions that they may individually or collaboratively take.
8. Larger policy options identification. By stressing the relevance of
stakeholders´ perspectives on the positive and negative impacts of a project, it is
also possible to identify larger policy options for the region that may require the
participation of other players such as local governments, state and federal
governments or even other large, medium size and small private corporations.
Based on the experience of the study conducted in Oaxaca, Mexico, the scope of
policy options that may be addressed in the IB-SIA is very large ranging from
drinking water provision, educational and labor training programs, creation of
cultural and historic preservation facilities, redesigning of health services, provision
of telecommunication facilities, insurance services, regulation of public
transportation among others. A project developer may find it easier to argue that
most of the larger policy issues are not part of his agenda, but from the standpoint
of the interests of other stakeholders, the impact of the project are directly
connected with what other public and private entities do during and after the project
is constructed.
References
Becker, Henck A. 2003 “Theory formation and application in social impact
assessement” in, Henck A. Becker and Vanclay Frank; editors. The International
Hanbook of Social Impact Assessment, conceptual and methodological advances.
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Pp. 129-142.
IAIA, 2003. Social Impact Assessment, international principles. Special publication
series, num, 2. P. 2.
Scharpf, Fritz, W. 1997. Games real actors play: actor centered institutionalism in
policy research. Boulder: Westview Press.
OECD, 2010. Guidance on sustainability impact assessment. Consulted on Google
books: http://bit.ly/1MmB9Pb,