ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two diverse but interrelated trends: the "faces" of social impact assessment (SIA), and its working environment in developing countries and shows that SIA is both essential and possible in poor countries as well as rich countries. Social impact assessment shows kinship, disparate yet related traditions of action and analysis: the environmental protection movement: citizens and government, a social science R&D approach: views and values, the project cycle: large and small projects, projects as systems: theory and practice and social criticism: projections and prophecies. The chapter suggests that some of the professional and political constraints to SIA in its first two decades, mainly in the industrialized world and considers the new working environment of SIA in the developing countries. SIA that is to make any real difference in development projects, especially those sponsored by governments, takes place in highly politicized social environments. Political constraints to impartial SIA are severe although less rigid than under the military government.
