Social Impact Assessment: The lesser sibling in the South African
EIA process?
Social Impact Assessment has developed as an integral but neglected component of EIA in South Africa since it
became mandatory in 1997, and has therefore been referred to as the “orphan” or “lesser sibling” of EIA, as has
SIA in the UK and the US. The aim of this paper is to test this claim by reviewing the quality of a sample of SIA
reports, and also to establish whether there has been any improvement in quality following the introduction
of revised EIA regulations in 2006. The results confirm that SIA can be called “the lesser sibling” due to the
weak grades achieved in the quality review, but also reveal that there has been a slight and consistent improvement
in quality, most likely driven by best practice considerations in the absence of prescriptive regulations for
SIA. Suggestions and recommendations for addressing observed weakness in SIA performance are advanced.