2008, Engineers Against Poverty
The new briefing note addresses systematic approaches to managing social risk and opportunity for large projects. The document summarises lessons from EAP’s extractive industries and public infrastructure programmes, including collaborative research with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), International Alert and the Actuarial Profession/Institution of Civil Engineers Joint Working Party on Project Risk Appraisal. It also draws on leading thinking on social risk management from organisations such as the IFC, the World Resources Institute and the CSR Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
The importance of managing social risk is becoming increasingly well understood by the proponents and financiers of large
projects. Social risks arise from the dissatisfaction and grievances of external community and non-governmental stakeholders. Failure to manage these issues can have enormous economic costs, significantly damage the reputations of organisations involved and even put entire investments at risk.This briefing note presents the key elements of a systematic approach to managing social risk and opportunity. The core objective of this approach is to generate broad-based community support
for the project based on free, prior and informed consent.
