SIA stands for social impact assessment. It is a process that identifies and assesses the potential impacts of development projects, plans or policies on communities and the environment. SIA aims to incorporate local knowledge and ensure equity and transparency in decision making. It also helps give equal weight to social aspects in sustainable development and leads to more socially sound outcomes that support socio-economic mobility. SIA uses quantitative, qualitative and mixed social research methods as well as a multi-stakeholder approach.

1. Why carry out SIA?
1. SIA is a part of the democratic process that can assist in ensuring
equity and transparency of decision-making
2. SIA is a form of assessment whereby the identification of the likely
impact of development is assessed to ensure that future benefits
will outweigh the costs of proposed project
3. And by using a participatory process, SIA can lead to better decision
making by accessing and incorporating local knowledge
4. It also assists in giving social aspects equal weight in sustainable
development and renders development more socially sound which
in turn will support an upward trend in socio-economic mobility.

2. Why carry out SIA?
SIA is a part of the
democratic process that
can assist in ensuring
equity and transparency
of decision-making
SIA is a form of
assessment whereby the
identification of the likely
impact of development is
assessed to ensure that
future benefits will
outweigh the costs of
proposed project
And by using a
participatory process, SIA
can lead to better decision
making by accessing and
incorporating local
knowledge
It also assists in giving
social aspects equal
weight in sustainable
development and renders
development more
socially sound which in
turn will support an
upward trend in socio-
economic mobility.

3. What is SIA
• SIA is a form of risk assessment (Esteves & Vanclay, 2009; Esteves et al., 2012; Vanclay, 1999)
• SIA is an important part of planning and implementation for projects, plans, programs and
policies- SIA is a process that is now used worldwide, albeit to varying degrees and in varying
ways (Esteves et al., 2012)
• Becker (2001) defined SIA as “the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or
proposed action, which are related to individual, organizations and social macro-systems”
• SIA is generally considered to be ex-ante or forward looking in nature (Goldman & Baum, 2000)
• HOWEVER, it is also considered to be applicable as an ex-post assessment (Ahmadvand et al.,
2009; Western & Lynch, 2000)
• Vanclay concluded that SIA should not merely be ex ante, but also needed to be goal orientated
and proactive rather than just reactive. This revised understanding of SIA seems to be the
emerging contemporary approach (Esteves et al., 2012)
• This brings to Iskandar Malaysia where the main approach is from top-down, since that is the
case, it only made sense that SIA for Iskandar Malaysia is be carried out ex-post and progressively
as the development continues.

4. Main Goals of SIA
• Finsterbusch (1977) identified two main goals of SIA being
• Assisting decision making by determining the full range of costs and benefits of a proposed action
• And improving the design and administration of policies in order to mitigate disadvantages and increase benefits
• The main objective is to assist policy makers and societal stakeholders to identify development goals, and to ensure that positive outcomes are
maximized while minimalizing the negative impacts (Vanclay, 2003)
• The main focus of any assessment is to provide knowledge and information about the consequences of planned intervention in order to manage the
social issues
• SIA is a hybrid of science and political process (Freudenberg, 1986) and provides advice to assist in designing mitigation and enhancement measures
(Joao et al., 2011)
• Features of SIA:
1. Orientation: Ex-ante and ex-post
2. Impacts: Positive and negative
3. Scope: Predominant focus on planned intervention (programs, plans, policies and projects)
4. Managerial approach: mitigation and enhancement; Improvement of interventions
5. Target Groups: More selective; primary focus on all potentially affected stakeholders
• Vanclay (2002) outlined a large number of potential impacts, highlighting that negative and positive impacts are equally important. We can categorize
four groups of impacts:
1. Intended positive
2. Intended negative
3. Unintended positive; and
4. Intended negative

5. • Burdge and Vanclay (1995) consider that social impacts are “all social and cultural consequences
to human populations of any puclic or private actions that alter the ways in which people live,
work, play, relate to one another, organize to meet their needs, and generally cope as members of
society”, including “changes to the norms, values, beliefs of individuals that guide and rationalize
their cognition of themselves and that their society.”
• Slootweg et al., (2001) consider that “an ‘impact’ has to be experienced or felt in a corporeal
(physical) or cognitive (perceptual) sense, whether at the level of individual, household, or
society/community.”
• In the field of SIA, social impacts include anticipated as well as unanticipated impacts, positive as
well as negative (Esteves et al., 2012; Vanclay, 2003)
• SIA is a goal-oriented and proactive; hence it should be used for problem solving
• It is also closely associated with the management of an impact and its consequences, rather than
just estimation and prediction
• This feature makes it comprehensive and in fact management is a core element of the process

6. Methodology
• SIA uses various social research methods including quantitative,
qualitative and mixed methods communly used in the social sciences
• Furthermore, they tend to use a multi-stakeholder approach in their
methodology
• As Spok (2010 mentioned, in SIA, data, analysis and interpretation are
under close scrutiny by broad range of stakeholders and can trigger
much controversy.