Executive Summary
Since the 1992 United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development, otherwise known as the Earth
Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro(Brazil), impact assessment has gradually become
the key component of development planning and decision making. More recently,
development agency planners and decision-makers have recognised the need for
better understanding of the consequences (Social, Environmental, Cultural, etc
) of programmes, projects and policies.
Impact assessment as a
system has been gradually developing as a discipline, as a profession and as a
branch or field of development science. Nevertheless, certain aspects of the
system are developing faster than others. Environmental, Social, Technological
impact assessment systems today embrace a much wider spectrum of the society
(including academics, development practitioners, policy makers, etc) than
cultural impact assessment.
The cultural
environment is different from the natural environment because the former reacts
in anticipation of change, but can adapt in reasoned ways to changing
circumstances in part of the planning process. In addition, people in different
cultural settings interpret change in different ways and react in different
ways. Perhaps, because of this complexity of culture, or the political
implications of acknowledging the cultural dimensions of development policies,
programmes and projects, cultural impact assessment has not been
well-integrated into the decision-making process of development agencies.
Nonetheless, certain
agencies have developed cultural impact assessment guidelines, but there are
remarkable variations in approaches and experiences on how cultural impacts of
policies and projects are to be assessed. There is therefore, up to now, no
systematic interdisciplinary statement from the cultural community as to what
the content of cultural impact assessment should be like, nor is there as yet
an internationally-negotiated and acceptable definition of cultural impact
assessment.
What then is cultural
impact assessment? What is its purpose or aim? Why has its development lagged
behind other forms of impact
assessment? What sort of principles and guidelines can be proposed to assess
the cultural impact of development policies and actions? What efforts have or
are being made to address cultural impact assessment at the national,
bilateral, multilateral and international levels?
In an attempt to
address these issues, with a view to promoting and preserving cultural
diversity for enhancing sustained development, delegates attending the workshop
on “Mechanisms for cultural impact
assessment “ at the INCD third annual meeting held in Cape Town (South Africa)
in October,2000, decided to form a
‘Cultural Impact Assessment Committee’ in a voluntary capacity, in order
to explore the feasibility of formulating international principles and
guidelines for cultural impact assessment.
Understood in it’s
broader sense, the term ‘cultural impact’ refers to the consequences to human
populations of any public or private policies and actions that significantly
changes their norms, values, beliefs, practices, institutions as well as the way
they work, socialize and organize themselves as part of their cultural life. A
central requirement of this process is to ensure that before development
agencies undertake actions which may significantly impact on the cultural life,
heritage or resources of the affected communities, that agency must first
prepare a cultural impact assessment statement or report, which could be used
to guide decision-making.
The need to outline a
set of principles and guidelines for assessing the cultural impacts of development
policies and actions is partly to ensure that culturally-damaging activities
are not encouraged to concentrate in those countries with the weakest standards
of preserving and promoting cultural diversity.
Communities are
constantly being confronted with challenges and concerns for preserving their
cultural heritage resources in the face of development activities of
governments and multinational companies. Sometimes the threats the communities
face stem from the lack of adequate legal protection for their cultural
heritage resources. At other times, the ascendancy given to economic
considerations, marginalizes the role of culture in development process and
hence undermines efforts at preserving the cultural diversity of affected
communities.
In the light of these
nagging challenges and concerns, governments are beginning to respond to the
situation through the formulation of relevant policies, enactment of required
legislations and establishment of competent national agencies to ensure the
protection of the national heritage resources. The picture, however, is not all
that rosy as many governments are yet to provide the required enabling
environment for ensuring the adequate protection and promotion of the heritage.
At the international
level, inter-governmental organizations are also beginning to realize that it
is in their interests to have guidelines on cultural impact assessment
standardized so that member states or beneficiary countries of their
development funding programmes, do not suffer differential competitive
disadvantages by operating under different rules and systems.
The goal therefore,
for undertaking the formulation of international principles and guidelines for
cultural impact assessment by the INCD is to contribute to the preservation and
promotion of the cultural diversity of affected communities, with a view to
ensuring the sustainability of development actions and policies. In the light
of the aforesaid, the Cultural Impact Assessment Committee established in Cape
Town, set to the task of formulating international principles and guidelines
for assessing the cultural impact of development policies and actions.
The formulation
process involves a review of current literature and an analysis of
action-research case-study experiences with significant cultural dimensions at
the regional levels in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Data and information
from the Literature review and the case-study analysis is expected to be
compiled into the ‘State of the Art Report’ on cultural impact assessment. The
report will then form the basis of the background document for the formulation
of the international principles and guidelines on cultural impact assessment.
In order to ensure the
applicability of the guidelines in different environments and settings, it will
be field-tested and validated in operational projects in Asia, Africa and Latin
America. Thereafter, support strategies will be designed to enhance the
propagation of the guidelines through training and capacity-building,
communication and advocacy and policy research and advisory services.
Burama K. Sagnia
Coordinator, Cultural
Impact Assessment Committee
African Itinerant
College for Culture and Development