Social and Gender Impact Assessment of Road Infrastructure Development: Case of Samtredia-Grigoleti Highway, 2018

... It should be stressed the environmental and social impact assessment of the E-60 highway project has not been commenced. The Georgian legislation of 2006-2017 allowed carrying out social and environmental impact assessment for divided projects, section by section, according to the so-called salami principle, which completely contradicts the EU legislation. Correspondingly, four independent environmental impact assessment reports were prepared for each lot of Samtredia-Grigoleti road. The reports are virtually identical. They don’t contain assessment of the project’s socio-economic and gender impact on the communities living along the road, as well as the impact of land purchase on the affected individuals have not been thoroughly examined either...

Despite the fact that, according to the EIA and the RAP, no physical resettlement was expected to occur, three families were eventually displaced. Since the RAP did not envisage mitigation measures, the only additional compensation received by these families was GEL 200 to cover relocation costs...

Most of the respondents surveyed by Green Alternative emphasised that they were unsatisfied with their compensation paid by the Roads Department. They said that no negotiations took place while the price offered for agricultural land plots was half the market price. The price offered by the project for 1 sq. m of land was GEL 3 while the market price ranges between GEL 7 and GEL 10.

In addition, fearing that the state would expropriate their property, part of the population agreed to the price they were offered...

Along with social impact assessment, the gender impact assessment been ignored by ESIA...The road construction changed  practically nothing in terms of women’s employment, only a few women were employed by the project,mostly as cooks and  cleaners. No one had thought about women’s employment within the project and nothing has improved in this regard...

The survey also uncovered that the population was not informed about the issues related to the projects. None of the  respondents was aware that the EIA and the RAP reports had been prepared. Most of the respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the project sponsor did not talk to them at any point...

The majority of the respondents believed that the construction of the new highway was truly necessary for both the country and the region, but they underscored that the participation of the population in the decision-making process had to be ensured at  the stage of the project preparation, which would contribute to the better planning of the project...