ID: 1696
Presenting Author: Vusala Rustamova
Session: 542 - Are We Living in the Post-Consultation Era?
Status: pending
The paper highlights how excessive stakeholder consultations can create misinformation, unrealistic expectations, and fatigue, and argues for a proportionate, risk-based approach to ensure credible
Meaningful stakeholder consultations and engagement are crucial for inclusive and transparent social impact assessment. However, in practice, consultations sometimes go beyond what is reasonable and proportionate to the risks and impacts of the project. These “over consultations” often lead to inflated expectations among the community and fatigue in the community and local authorities. This situation becomes overwhelming for local authorities tasked or requested with arranging public consultations. As a result, unjustified and disproportionate consultations bring misinformation and undermine credibility.
The misinformation can be in the form of unrealistic expectations for livelihood restoration measures or unreasonable employment opportunity expectations from the project. Project experiences show that having high number of consultations, without proper justification, for low risk non-linear projects may damage the project implementation as a result of misinformation, non-supportive authorities and fatigue in communities in participating project design and implementation.
This paper argues for proportionate approach to consultations, aligned with the type, risks, impacts and interest of stakeholders. Effective consultations should balance inclusivity and balance
Vusala Rustamova is a freelance social development/resettlement professional with over 13 years of experience in various sectors. She has extensive experience in stakeholder engagement.