Session Description
Community-led initiatives around the world are powerful drivers of positive social, cultural, environmental, and economic impacts. From conservation and ecological restoration to placemaking, disaster recovery, climate adaptation, cultural heritage and local development, communities are leading projects that shape resilient and sustainable futures. Yet the social impacts of these initiatives can be under-assessed and poorly integrated into project planning, or overlooked in monitoring and management.
SIA practitioners in many countries are supporting community-led initiatives that help to address this problem. They are using innovative, participatory approaches, co-design methodologies, and monitoring and evaluation frameworks to help build social cohesion, equity, local empowerment, and community resilience. This session will consider papers on the use of SIA in community-led and inter-disciplinary projects and how impact assessment methodologies can learn from these examples to further evolve and strengthen future practice.
There are past and current examples of SIAs where inter-disciplinary and/or community-led initiatives have shown how SIA can be better explained, and adapted, to future practice. For example, a recent SIA in Aotearoa New Zealand to help build momentum in a predator free project, reported on the social impacts of the proposed project but also involved building the capacity of the project team in using SIA at the community level. Often led by ecologists with limited social practice knowledge, these teams wanted an understanding of how the SIA process is beneficial to what seems to be an inherently ecological project.
Session Summary
This session explores how SIA can recognise and strengthen outcomes from community-led projects, including conservation, climate adaptation, economic regeneration, placemaking, and heritage protection. Papers will examine practice lessons that advance more inclusive, integrated, community-led, and future-focused assessments
Session Chair
Nick Taylor
Nick Taylor and Associates
New Zealand
Session Co-chair
Katherine Russell
Independent Consultant
New Zealand