亚洲开发银行资助项目(12)

亚洲开发银行资助项目

Executive Summary

1. Purpose of this Handbook

This Handbook is a training handbook on how to implement social assessment (SA) in projects, and has been prepared by the author based on the policy requirements of Asian

Development Bank (“ADB”) for projects financed by it, and the author’s experience in SA. This Handbook aims to train project management offices (PMOs), employers, design and implementing agencies so that they can realize the importance of SA for the design

optimization, effective implementation, proper operation and objectives fulfillment of projects, and incorporate SA methods and tools into project preparation, design and implementation self-consciously in order to affect project objectives positively. In sum, this Handbook is

intended to improve the SA capacities of decision-makers, PMOs, design and implementing agencies, and departments concerned at all levels in Chinese investment projects.

The focus of this Handbook is to change training participants accordingly, improve their SA awareness, enable them to master SA methods and tools and implement them at different stages of a project, so that all stakeholders of the project can be involved, and a certain action mechanism is established and routinized. Of course, such change is not generated

automatically, but entails the active involvement and single-minded devotion of PMOs, employers, design staff and other parties concerned with SA.

2. Logical structure of this Handbook

This Handbook has been compiled from the applicable ADB policies and the SA practice of projects of different types, and is intended to be logical and practical. This Handbook consists of three parts:

Part 1 introduces the concept of SA, the relationship between SA and projects, the

general SA analysis framework, and SA analysis methods and tools. This part is an integration of the existing SA policies of ADB and the author’s many years of experience in SA.

Part 2 is based mainly on the SA analysis framework outlined in Part 1, describes the SA requirements and key points for different stages of project lifecycle and projects of different types, and makes an analysis on the basis of information on projects of different types. The aim is to make trainees understand the relationship between SA and projects more clearly, and improve their understanding of the SA concept and methodology. The focus is to foster trainees’ practical skills and observation ability, so that they can drive and facilitate the SA aspect in projects.

Part 3 is a general introduction of how to prepare SA reports in light of ADB policies based mainly on the analysis in Parts 1 and 2. In particular, the SA report described this part is a general template for trainees based on the above analysis framework, and has to be adjusted accordingly for different projects in practice.

3. What is SA?

SA is a process of participation of all stakeholders involved in a project, especially the process of participation of groups that are likely to be neglected, such as the poor, women and ethnic minorities, in project design and decision-making. SA stresses the supplement of local knowledge to expert knowledge, and uses participatory tools to collect information and make analyses mainly to make up deficiencies in expert knowledge.