Rethinking SIA: Why ex ante research Isn't enough

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Abstract
Social impact assessment (SIA), an applied form of social research essential to good development planning, has expanded to many Third World settings and is currently being adapted to conservation and protected area initiatives. The ex ante or pre‐project focus of SIA, ordinarily a, virtue, is diminished in value as projects increase in complexity, uncertainty, and duration. Protected area development, by design and definition, embodies each of these characteristics. This paper makes the case for continuous, multi‐stage SIA, drawing on insights from adaptive management as recently applied to environmental impact assessment. Such an adaptation of protected area social impact assessment (PASIA) conforms well to the complete project cycle review approach used by the World Bank, the particular institutional focus of the paper.