History: Sia Cannot Be Conducted Without Local Participation

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can bring to the entire stakeholders. Involving process, impact, and outcome evaluations, the project evaluation process is accustomed to offering information for potential practitioners, offering evidence on the enhanced nature of the practice, and building knowledge foundation regarding the impact assessment. Proper alignment of performance, empowerment, learning, audit, accountability, implementation advancement, and capacity enhancement offers clear evaluation process to acquire support from all stakeholders in the society.

A proper instance is denotable from the NSW Health Impact Assessment Project presented by Wells et al. proved to have undergone participatory approaches and methods of working group surveying and analysing SIA process documentation to engage the societal participation capacity. The SIA alignment activities of offering newsletters and publication for the project development were presented to engage local community for their sharing, enhancing and analysing their knowledge, the working group survey and the SIA process documentation showed very effective evaluation process in the development continuation of the project. Among the participants, 90% percent argued that their agency was benefiting from the project and agreed or strongly agreed that the Lower Hunter Region strategy application of the project was rewarding.

Some of the social impact requiring proper exploration in the SIA process can be denotable from the Lower Hunter Regional Strategy project. As presented by Wells et al., the Lower Hunter Regional Strategy is a project prepared by Department of Planning aiming at identifying the way the regional development will be managed within the basis of critical sustainability for the next 25 years within the area shown in Figure 2 . Lower Hunter Region is a region in NSW, Australia, considered rich in resources; an economic stability that is causing massive population growth . The uniqueness of the region is that it has a landscape with contrasting environments ranging from highly urbanized areas to rugged mountainous places to estuarine and coastal environments due to the Hunter River and Lake Macquarie.

The sustainability basis is considered to be the influence of health and social-wellbeing in provision of equitable distribution and access of services through the region, particularly with the aspired population growth of 125,000 people in the region for the set duration. For the 17 sites that were subjected to Lower Hunter Regional project, it was provable that some of them were more and other less vulnerable when considering the aspired capacity variation currently and in future. Social impacts in the most vulnerable sites were limited access to general health care practitioners when the aspired population occurs within the set duration of 25 years . Additionally, there will be unreliable transportation links, fewer schools to sufficient education for the increased population, low rate of employment opportunities and difficulties of accessing affordable housing.

Figure 2: Lower Hunter Regional Strategy Project

Source: Wells, Licata, Gillham, and Kempton, (p. 129)

Policy Engagement in Community Participation

In the aspect of allowing local participations in the projects, governments are also subjected to integrating the policy attributions to encourage proper involvement of the local community to join the global concern in such things as less destruction of environment . Like many other countries, the Australia is among the nations who have joined Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), a unique forum that helps guide governments on how to integrate social, economic and environmental with the local participation consideration for effective and seamless project developments . As seconded by Ansar, Flyvbjerg, Budzier, and Lunn, organizing such forums is important because of the fact that social objectives concerning poverty alleviation, reduction or control of climate change and production of sufficient energy prompts the policy makers to engage into a cooperative guidance in the process of involving local participations for proper alignment of project foundations . One of the critical realities concerning the application of the SIA is the legal framework applicable to the processes as a way to enhance positive strategies and impacts for the betterment of the general societal-based projects. In this case, SIA is used an advocacy tool whereby direct influenced community are subjected to approval programs showing them the criticality of the project undertaken towards attainment of general benefits. As presented by the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning, the state agencies are accustomed to providing data and substantial information to support and direct the social baseline assessment, while the local government is accustomed to reviewing and providing consistent data, information and offer advices to the social baseline assessment (3). Properly aligned process for these organisations enables the SIA to act successfully as advocacy for seamless project processions and attainment of set goals.

As presented by Department of Sustainability and Environment, the Melbourne 2030 endorsing panning for sustainable growth has seen the government using SIA to boost its acceptance and applicability across the affected society . The project engages urban growth boundary urging for long-term limits on the development within urban areas in order to pave way for non-urban development by raising the values and land uses that are accustomed to prevail in Melbourne metropolitan which includes Mornington Peninsula shown in Figure 1. As presented by Commonwealth of Australia, there is profound strategic assessment on Melbourne’s urban growth boundary whereby the federal environment minister entered into agreement with Victorian Government to enhance the SIA under Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in order to help in positioning the society for-development . The project aims at expanding boundary through creation of space for 600,000 new dwellings in Melbourne.

Figure 1: Melbourne 2030 Plan for Sustainable Growth

Source: Department of Sustainability and Environment

Local Participation Benefiting Local Government, Non-Governmental Organisations, and Community

SIA has been known for its guidance in making critical decisions for better economical, environmental, and sustainable societal developments not only to aid the