Who is involved in environmental and social impact assessment public participation? Observations on urban and rural practices in Malawi

ABSTRACT In this paper, the authors reflect on public participation (PP) in environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes in Malawi, where EIA is implemented as Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). Who is invited and who is actively contributing to PP meetings is explored. In this context, 12 ESIAs are examined, six from rural and six from urban areas. While PP principles ask for a balanced approach towards the inclusion of both interested and affected individuals and bodies, in the 12 projects, participants were mostly development and planning experts in urban projects and traditional leaders (chiefs) in rural projects. People without societal positions that were directly affected by developments only represented 15% of those being present in PP meetings. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that PP policy needs to be improved and enforced in order to allow ordinary people potentially directly affected by development to be better represented.