Impact assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
Nick Taylor and Greg Barbara
Complex safeguards arrangements are a particular problem for projects in many countries, where external funding sources are utilised. Safeguards requirements and compliance is often a complex combination of country and funder requirements. To successfully meet all the project requirements project developers often have to enlist external consultants with knowledge of the systems of development banks and donors. The mix of requirements can result in a stop-start-stop approach to planning with adjustments to project components and resulting changes in impacts as originally assessed, and then ongoing revisions and updates to approvals and to environmental and social management plans. The results are increased project timelines and costs, short-cuts to participatory processes and assessments of impacts, and a lack of time and commitment to build local capacity in IA.
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Benefit sharing for infrastructure projects needs careful assessment and clear articulation. Projects generally are designed to create positive impacts, while negative impacts are mitigated or managed to enhance the net outcome for people and communities. A number of benefit-sharing mechanisms and institutional arrangements can be possible and desirable (Schulz and Skinner, 2022) and should be considered as part of project impact assessment with wide participation to determine community needs, including support for the capacity of affected communities to absorb any new arrangements. It requires extensive coordination between the various stakeholders to take place, to achieve an understanding of what benefit sharing will entail and how it will be delivered. One issue is that benefit sharing is often seen as a form of pay-out, so it is important that all parties clearly define the objectives of any provisions they design. Another issue is that benefit sharing is not impact management nor is it merely a form of compensation, or the provision of any offsets for the loss of assets, including ecological, cultural and heritage assets. Benefit sharing is also not remediation of past mistakes such as environmental clean ups encountered in a new project. The matter of benefit sharing is therefore potentially contentious and donors have varying requirements for how it is applied, although generally it is aimed at disseminating the financial benefits of a project to the wider community and society in the form of programmes to enhance livelihoods, living standards, skills and technical capacity. It can also be used for synergistic infrastructure projects that offer benefits to the community through health, security, sanitation or other initiatives.
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Cumulative effects come from the combined impacts of a single or several activities or events on a receiving environment over time. Common examples in the Pacific include the effects of climate change, waste and pollution on areas subject to successive development of infrastructure, such as ports, coastal roads and causeways, and reclamations for urban growth affecting reef systems or coastal vegetation including mangrove forests. Other examples are the spread of tourism infrastructure across small islands and coastal areas, and nitrification and sedimentation of lagoons from agricultural activity, urban waste and storm water. The important feature of these sorts of cumulative impacts is that they often result in a wide range of consequential effects, including on cultural practices, livelihoods, food security and human health. The focus of cumulative assessment therefore is often on valued environmental components. Assessment of cumulative effects requires skills in strategic assessment, systems and spatial analysis, ecological and social analysis, integrated assessment and participatory appraisal.
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Gender and social inclusion are considerations in most projects. The PRIF facility recently commissioned a report on this topic and it identifies priority groups in relation to social inclusion. There are multiple groups potentially impacted by infrastructure development in the Pacific that face at least some level of social exclusion. These groups include “women and girls, people with disabilities, rural and remote communities, residents in urban settlements (often migrants from rural areas), ethnic minorities, youth, and the elderly” (Jones, 2022). An inclusive approach to infrastructure development looks to generate positive outcomes for the human rights and social wellbeing of all social groups and utilises an inclusive, participatory approach to project planning, including all forms of impact assessment. Social impact assessment in particular plays an important part in ensuring there is analysis of social disparities in any social baseline analysis, an understanding of any impacts on human rights, and makes sure participatory techniques are used in identifying, analysing and managing impacts (Vanclay, et al., 2015).
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Grievance redress mechanisms (GRMs) are an under-utilised tool in the Pacific Islands (and elsewhere). GRMs provide projects with an important way to maintain ongoing engagement with affected people and a channel for communicating progress, and to address any new issues arising from impact mitigation and management. Key concerns with using GRMs are their often complex and bureaucratic arrangements and the involvement of multiple parties who might be channels for grievances arising from a project. These different parties can include contractors on the ground undertaking project works, a lead contractor, project owners, and responsible agencies. Often grievances reflect unresolved issues such as the use of customary land, payments and distributions of royalties, and confusion over the distribution of project benefits. Grievances can also build from previous failures to deliver project benefits or to remediate previous environmental damage. Gendered GRM processes are an increasing focus for impact assessment internationally and require particular attention in the Pacific (Kimotho and Ogol, 2021).
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Monitoring and audit procedures are an important aspect of project compliance to national, donor and multilateral requirements and standards. These procedures also provide an important set of data for evaluations of project outcomes including post-project assessments and assessments by third parties such as NGOs. Assessments are usefully designed consistent with established frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and specialist indices such as the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index for SIDS. A key issue for monitoring and compliance is the mix of requirements when projects consider the multiple needs of host governments, donors and multilateral organisations such as development banks. It is therefore essential to develop an agreed framework for environmental and social monitoring, including spatial boundaries, early in project implementation. SPREP has maintained a particular focus on environmental monitoring and governance and supports countries through resources and technical support including national environment data sharing and reporting.
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