This blog will take you through the technical basics of a Social Impact Assessment (SIA). To read more about the implementation facets of an SIA, head to Part 2.
What is a Social Impact Assessment (SIA)?
The development sector is seeing an inflow of much higher investments. India’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure for FY19-20 stood at more than INR. 15,000 crores. In a positive move to shift the focus from expenditure alone and improve the quality of CSR projects, the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules 2021 made impact assessment mandatory for companies undertaking CSR activities and CSR expenditure above a specified threshold.
In this context, SIAs help answer two questions:
- Is the programme really making a difference with the resources (money, time, etc.) it is investing? For whom? And to what extent?
- And how can it be done better? How can the programme be strengthened?
Thus, SIAs provides a structured way of measuring and managing impact.
What are the guidelines to do an SIA?
The most comprehensive and most used approach that guides an SIA is the OECD DAC framework which has 6 criteria:
- Relevance: The extent to which the objectives of a programme are consistent with the recipients’ requirements, country needs, global priorities, and partners’ policies.
- Efficiency: A measure of how economically resources/inputs (funds, expertise, time, equipment, etc.) are converted into results.
- Effectiveness: The extent to which the programme’s objectives are achieved, or are expected to be achieved, considering their relative importance.
- Impact: Positive and negative primary and secondary long-term effects produced by the programme, whether directly or indirectly, intended or unintended.
- Sustainability: The continuation of benefits from the programme after major development assistance has ceased, which must be environmentally and financially sustainable.
- Coherence: The compatibility of the programme with other programmes in a country, sector or institution. (OECD DAC)
What are the advantages of using Social Impact Assessments to measure impact?
There are several advantages to doing SIAs.
- They help to get a structured overview of how social programs are contributing to the lives of beneficiaries and participants.. It helps implementing organisations/evaluators understand whether the programme is doing the right thing. In terms of return on investment, it is important to know what the programme is doing and also create a stronger and deeper impact, by making course-corrective actions.
- They encourage goodwill, participation, and relationships with participants. Delving into questions such as how has the programme helped, what else could have been done, and what more could the programme do, indicate that the programme is willing to learn and adapt.
- They enable learning about unintended consequences. Recognising any unintended positive and adverse consequences helps a programme map all associated outcomes. While mitigating the negative consequences, learning in terms of how programme teams could design programmes better, will also occur.
Thus, SIAs help to keep revisiting the impact.
How is a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) different from the other methods of measuring impact?
By itself, SIA is not a methodology. Rather, it is more of a technical term to measure organizational impact. Several methodologies fall within the purview of SIA, including the ones listed below.
- Longitudinal study: A longitudinal study attempts to understand correlations through repeated observations of the same variables/aspects/persons/subjects over long periods of time (Montaño & Huang). A Randomized Control Trial, which is a type of a longitudinal study, randomises access to social programmes to limit bias and ensure validity of findings (India Development Review).
- Retrospective study: A retrospective study asks stakeholders to review a programme post-completion. Stakeholders are asked to rate and rank various aspects/ organisations/ individuals of the programmes on certain observed outcomes and impact (Transition Network).
- Social audit: A social audit is a systematic SWOT analysis of the social, economic and community aspects of a programme(Civicus). Centering stakeholder perceptions, it evaluates the gaps between desired outcomes and actual outcomes, thereby presenting more targeted ways for social and economic change.
- Pre-post assessments with comparison groups: This mechanism is built around trying to best attribute outcomes to a programme. While one participating ‘treatment’ group receives the intervention, another participating ‘control’ group does not, thereby helping evaluators assess how much of an effect the programme actually has (IFAD).
The choice of methodology remains contingent on time, resources, and objectives.
If you are looking to carry out a Social Impact Assessment, reach out to us at hello@the4thwheel.com.
4th Wheel is running the Explained series. In this series, we take up emerging approaches/ tools/ methodologies and break them down for ease in understanding.
Works Cited
Angela Ambroz, Marc Shotland, et al. “Randomised Controlled Trial.” BetterEvaluation, 1 Sept. 2020, www.betterevaluation.org/en/plan/approach/rct
Prasad, Gireesh Chandra. “Charity by Corporates Shows Signs of Drying Up.” Mint, 14 Feb. 2021, www.livemint.com/news/india/charity-by-corporates-shows-signs-of-drying-up-11613322398110.html.
Better Criteria for Better Evaluation: Revised Evaluation Criteria Definitions and Principles for Use. OECD DAC Network on Development Evaluation. 2019. https://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/revised-evaluation-criteria-dec-2019.pdf
“The Challenges of Conducting Impact Assessments of Community Driven Development Projects.” IFAD, www.ifad.org/en/web/latest/-/blog/the-challenges-of-conducting-impact-assessments-of-community-driven-development-projects
Montaño, Stephanie and Emily Huang. “Tip Sheet: Longitudinal Design”. Berkeley Centre for Teaching and Learning. 2014 https://teaching.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/ws_longitudinal_design_tip_sheet_montano_huang.pdf
“Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) Explained in Six Questions: IDR.” India Development Review, 5 Aug. 2021, idronline.org/randomised-controlled-trials/
“A Step by Step Guide to Monitoring and Evaluation.” Transition Network. 2014. https://transitionnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Monitoring-and-evaluation-guide.pdf
Pekkonen, Anu and Manjunath Sadashiva. “Social Audits”. Civicus. https://www.civicus.org/documents/toolkits/PGX_H_Social%20Audits.pdf
This blog is written by Nandita Palrecha, Associate- Monitoring and Evaluation at 4th Wheel Social Impact.
