ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relevance of social impact assessment (SIA) to infrastructure projects. It shows that SIA is useful and necessary irrespective of whether it is a legal requirement or not. The chapter explains awareness of SIA and of the current trends in the hope that there will be more systematic use of SIA in infrastructure projects. SIA developed alongside environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the early 1970s as an ex-ante mechanism to consider the social impacts of planned interventions. The underlying philosophy of the current paradigm of SIA seeks to maximize the positive outcomes while minimizing harm, which it does by being an ongoing process of managing the social issues of development, in other words, an adaptive management approach. Many industry sectors have adopted a sustainable development ethos and many industry bodies have developed codes of practice, sometimes specifically on SIA.
