Environmental Assessment
Volume B-5.1
Mine
Socioeconomics
Ambatovy Project
331
January 2006
knowing what they actually turn out to be. Although there is experience in
identifying indicators of well-being, it has proved extremely difficult to
understand cause and effect.
Irrespective of directly attributable cause and effect, it is in the interests of the
proponents to understand socioeconomic trends such that where the project is
able to intervene effectively, it has the information to do so. The project has a
long-term interest in healthy communities. In addition, putting in place a
monitoring framework that attempts to understand cause and effect is important
to both the project and affected people, as a contribution both to maintaining a
constructive relationship between affected people and the project and to adjusting
project mitigations in response to evolving impacts.
Monitoring perceptions, through ongoing consultation with affected populations,
is also important. The continuity of social values or the levels of disturbance
related to behaviours of out of area workforces for example are primarily
subjectively experienced. The project’s ongoing consultations with its workforce
and affected people will provide some such information.
Insights from other international studies can inform the interpretation of data
collected in the areas of project activities as described above. The monitors
would include review of such studies in deliberations on the cause and effect
relationships between project activity and community well-being indicators.
5.1.2.10 Ongoing Consultation
Consultation throughout the life of the project is critical to mitigation and benefit
enhancement implementation and monitoring (Volume A, Section 6). The
project’s consultation program has been planned to provide people with
mechanisms they will need to participate in project decisions that affect them.
Information disclosure will continue to provide the information people will need
to do this from an informed position. There is clear demand on the part of
affected people for both more information on the project and for more clarity on
means to approach the proponents with new concerns, which has been taken into
consideration in identifying consultation and information disclosure activities as
described below. Undertakings with regard to public consultation include:
•
Public meetings at the commune level with project-affected people and
their representatives at least twice annually.
•
Meetings with sub groups, for example with businessmen, women or
farmers, of the population at large where issues or opportunities arise.
