REC - Sofia Initiatives: EIA: Social Impact Assessment

Use of Social Impact Assessment within EIA Systems in CEE and NIS

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is a systematic analysis of social, economic and cultural impacts of the proposed development interventions, is increasingly becoming a standard part of the EIA practice world-wide. This development of EIA systems can be attributed to growing demand for full and effective public participation in EIA. Many EIA-related legislation in the CEE and NIS countries directly or indirectly require assessment of social and cultural impacts, yet these legal provisions are often not adequately reflected in the actual EIA practice. This fact may be primarily attributed to the lack of practical methodological know-how for SIA among EIA consultants in the CEE and NIS. The Sofia Initiative had an initial discussion on the Use of SIA within EIA in CEE and NIS that revealed that:

social impacts are within EIA usually addressed through:
- assessment of direct social impacts caused by the development (e.g. division of a community by road, direct aesthetic effects, etc.),
- risk assessment and assessment of health impacts,
- direct local economic impacts (decrease of value of local property, etc.),
there is no uniform formula for assessment of social impacts within EIA - all social impacts should be determined by scoping and should be properly reviewed through public review of the EIS.

The Initiative endorsed the need for proper scoping and public participation. The Sofia Initiative was therefore encouraged to concentrate also on the issues of public participation in EIA.

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REC * PROGRAMS * SOFIA INITIATIVES * ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT * SOCIAL IA