Session Description
Projects which have impacts to indigenous communities and on indigenous land impact not just stakeholders, but rightsholders. Projects will often acknowledge the former but not necessarily the latter when assessing impacts and outcomes from a project. Community benefits are talked about are rarely measured in a transparent, provable and accountable manner, and reporting is rarely indigneous-led. Frameworks are beginning to emerge internationally, such as the Pehta Framework in Canada, but there remains little standardisation internationally, and large-scale reporting frameworks such as the Global Reporting Initiative focus on negative lag indicators rather than positive leading indicators. This session explores the issues of how projects and practitioners can best demonstrate outcomes which benefit indigenous communities and respect their status as rightsholders, within both a project context but also over an extended period of time. Such work requires tools which are respected and led by the indigenous community, while integrating with the types of reporting that is used by project proponents, governments and delivery organisations. Papers are invited from practitioners involved in project delivery, assessment and reporting, and from indigenous practitioners and knowledge holders, to share their experience of social impact reporting and what is effective and can convincingly demonstrate the delivery of real benefits to impacted communities. The development of effective, robust and transparent reporting frameworks is essential to translate words into outcomes, and to hold project proponents to transparently account for the impacts their projects claim to deliver.
Session Summary
This session examines and discusses different approaches to effectively measuring and reporting on impacts and benefits to indigenous communities across the world.
Session Chair
MacLaren North
Asteria Advisory Pty Ltd
Australia