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Public Consultation and Participation
Need for stakeholder involvement
The involvement of the "public", or often referred to as "stakeholders", is a vital component in successful EIA.
Who are the stakeholder's?
Local people:
- individuals
- communities/villages
- traditional authorities e.g. village leaders
Project beneficiaries:
not necessarily have to be local
NGOs:
- those which are active in local area or have interest on natural resources/social welfare
- interested parties in the country of any external financing agency
Voluntary organizations:
- local community
- development or users groups
- kinship societies
- recreational groups
- neighborhood associations
- labor unions
- gender groups
- ethnic organizations
- cooperatives
- etc
Private sector:
- business interest groups
- trade associations
- professional societies
- etc
National/local governments:
those with responsibilities for management of natural resources along with people welfare and those likely to be affected by the development project.
Scientist/experts:
those who focus on technical aspects of the project, such as
- land use planning
- natural resource management
- social infrastructure
- etc
Benefits and disbenefits of stakeholder involvement
Experience has shown that there are benefits of stakeholder involvement in EIA process. However, there are difficulties and constraints while formulating plans for public involvement. Both are displayed below.
Benefits |
Disbenefits |
- improved understanding
- identification of alternative and mitigation measures
- clarification of trade-offs for each alternative
- identification of forums to resolve issues
- induces of transparent procedures
- creation of accountability and sense of local ownership
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- difficult to identify all affected parties
- communication difficulty due to linguistic and cultural diversities
- illiteracy
- lack of local knowledge on the projects
- unequal access to consultations (for example, women)
- time/cost implications
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Methods for stakeholder involvement
In participatory decision making, there is no single source of ultimate control or authority. The participating parties must discuss and reach a decision by means of an agreed process. There are numerous methods which can be utilized to involve stakeholders, especially the public, in EIA process
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Public meetings |
- open with no restriction as to who may attend
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| 2 |
Advisory panels |
- group of individuals chosen to represent stakeholders
- meet periodically to assess work done/results obtained
- advise on future works
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| 3 |
Public information centres |
- facility in an accessible location
- contains information on the project
- members of the public can visit, obtain information and express concerns
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| 4 |
Interviews |
- open-ended interviews with selected community representatives
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| 5 |
Questionnairs |
- a written, structured series of questions
issued to local people
assemble concerns/views/ideas
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| 6 |
Participatory Appraisal techniques |
- a systematic approach to appraisal based on group inquiry and analysis with multiple and varied inputs
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See also
Cost Involvemnt
There is no doubt that stakeholders involvement takes more time and money resource allocation. For a project in remote locality and in multi-cultural context, the costs and other difficulties must be tackled and such provisions should be made in EIA planning and budgeting stages. Cost consideration should include the following:
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hiring of social scientists with local knowledge and experience to be involved in the process, |
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preparation of information sheets and report summaries in local languages, |
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media publicity (newspapers, radios), |
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travel costs to enable representatives of stakeholders to attend meetings, and |
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accommodation and travel costs for EIA team to 'service' the involvement process. |
Example
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