Can social impact assessment improve social well-being in a future where social inequality is rife?

SIA is a recognised form of impact assessment, and is implemented in many parts of the world. The difference between emerging and developed economies provides a background to the social context in which SIA takes place, and project-scale benefits of SIA are often lost due to factors that operate at a much broader scale. Deteriorating governance and increased migration in the context of increased economic and well-being disparities are examples that decrease the efficacy of SIA in emerging economies. The approaches that have been crafted in SIA can be strategically focussed on the well-being of communities. SIA methods can be focussed on policy level which is where many future social impacts must be mitigated. The challenges that are going to be faced in the 21st Century are complex societal issues that present on scales larger than the project scale. SIA should be divorced from project-level compliance where it is often reduced to a tick-box exercise and transformed into a defined discipline that serves a strategic function at a broader, strategic scale.