Socio-Environmental Risks in Infrastructure Projects

Introduction:
I would like to start this journal just by a mere comparison of the world at present with the world a few centuries back, the nature forests, rivers etc. are all degrading at a rapid rate. If this is continued, it wont take much time for us to reach the brim of the destruction curve. So, the time has come for everyone to act their parts for protecting the environment. One of the reasons for the social and environmental destruction is the development of large and small scale infrastructure projects. They might promote the economic development at the same time they show huge socioenvironmental risks. The key players of the infrastructure projects are generally government, funding agencies like banks, NGOs and public, and SPVs. It should be in the motto of everyone to mitigate the socio-environmental risks of these projects.

Key Risks:
The key socio-environmental risks in infrastructure projects are loss of natural habitat, impacts to cultural property, land acquisition leading to loss of access to source of livelihood, involuntary resettlement (IR) requiring relocation of populations and associated compensation, political and litigious issues, effects tourism industry of the locality, security of operations (human rights violation encouraging child labour, terrorism and social unrest), bribery and corruption (especially in developing countries with weak governances), climate change by long term depletion of ozone layer and emission of greenhouse gases (GHG), and for small scale infrastructure projects disruption of other users during construction (roads, etc.). Large scale lenders (like World Bank, IIFCL etc.) and investors have to look upon these critical issues very

strictly as they are directly involved with the public and it affects their reputation or credit rating. To get an insight of the losses created by these large scale infrastructure projects I would like to discuss briefly some of the socio-environmental risks. Firstly, regarding the involuntary displacement of the people. For development of large scale infrastructure projects, it is necessary for any controller to get direct control over land which is previously occupied by another group. Such infrastructure projects which cause displacement include natural resource extraction (mining), urban infrastructure development, SEZs, other projects such as roads, irrigation canals, and dams. All these projects require land. Table 1 shows the data composed from World Banks Environmental Department (WBED) report on forced migration, gives a breakdown by the cause of displacement of the distribution of people displaced by World Bank projects. The given figures are just indicative, and accounts for only a fraction of the estimated global total 3 percent of global dam displacement and 1 percent of global displacement from urban and transportation projects [1]. Table 1. Distribution of displacees by cause of displacement in World Bank projects (active in 1993) with resettlement Cause Dams, irrigation, canals Urban infrastructure, water supply, sewerage, transportation Projects 46 66 Percentage 31.5 45.2 People 1,304,000 443,000 Percentage 66.4 22.6

Thermal (including mining) Other Total World Bank

15 19 146

10.3 13.0 100

94,000 122,000 1,963,000

4.8 6.2 100

Secondly, effects on tourism industry. Several countries like Nepal and cities like Paris and Bangkok earn most of their income from tourism industry. But some of the projects like construction of water management system in Albania and Bujagali hydropower plant near Bujagali waterfalls; Uganda etc. affect the tourism industry. In a report by UNWTO (World Tourism Organization), it is mentioned that 5 percent of the global GDP constituted by tourism industry. It created jobs for 235 million people across the world. It is also estimated that by 2030 there will be around 1.8 billion international tourists [2].

Mitigation measures:
To avoid the social and environmental risks, the project has to get acceptance by the society. Some of the dimensions of social acceptance are socio-political acceptance of the technologies and policies by the public, key stakeholders and policy makers, community acceptance of facilities, and market acceptance of investments in these facilities by the investors. It has to be made mandatory for infrastructure projects to carry out the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and come out with an action plan for mitigating the measures as per the proper legal framework

which has to be framed by the government and the lending banks and other investors to protect their credit ratings. Other suggestions for mitigating the risks are by incorporating environmental and social safeguard conditions in the construction contracts/O&M contracts, proper agreements should be signed with the project contractor or developer for Enterprise Project Management (EPM) or Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) implementing measures, maintaining legal covenants to ensure responsibilities regarding environmental and social safeguard issues. Institutions have to be set up for conducting the annual audit on these projects for ensuring the mitigation measures taken. The question which has to be answered by every project developer is Which attributes of infrastructure development projects, host countries, host communities and key stakeholders (political leaders, NGOs), individually or in combination, contribute most to conflict during their construction and operation? [3] By mitigating the answer for this question leads to the success of the project.

References:
1) WBED report on forced migration. (http://www.forcedmigration.org/researchresources/expert-guides). 2) UNWTO report on tourism (www.unwto.org). 3) Damming Northeast India - Neeraj Vagholikar & Partha J. Das. 4) Environmental and social safeguards framework (ESSF) IIFCL, New Delhi, IN. 5) Managing Social Risk in Global Infrastructure Projects R. Levitt, D.McAdam, W.R. Scott, J. Davis, R. Orr CRGP, Stanford University.