Social Impact Assessment as a tool for social development in South Africa : an exploratory study

Abstract

South Africa faces many development challenges, of which poverty and inequality are the most significant. Social development is one of the mechanisms used in an attempt to address some of the developmental challenges. The South African government adopted a developmental approach to social welfare. However, a history of institutional human rights abuse in the form of Apartheid has left a legacy. An area in which social development is failing to gain traction is in the corporate sphere. Industrial projects often require a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) in compliance with environmental laws, but this is demonstrated to be a grudge expenditure that is only supported to obtain authorisation for the development rather than a genuine commitment to social change. However, SIA and social development have common traits. The goal of this study was to explore whether SIA can be used as a tool for social development in the South African context. The theoretical framework of the study is embedded in social development which underpins the context of poverty, human rights, developmental social work and a social protection floor. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design was used for the study. The first qualitative phase of the study used an instrumental case study design and the second quantitative phase used a structured non participant observation design. For the qualitative study data was collected through 24 semi structured interviews with SIA practitioners who was selected through purposive and snowball sampling methods, and three World Cafés. For the quantitative study, data was collected through a cross-sectional survey analysing fifteen SIA reports that were produced between 2008 and 2014 to determine the extent that it reflects social development goals.