Large-scale corporate projects, particularly those in extractive industries or hydropower development, have a history from early in the twentieth century of creating negative environmental, social, and health impacts on communities proximal to their operations. In many instances, especially for hydropower projects, the forced resettlement of entire communities was a feature in which local cultures and core human rights were severely impacted. These projects triggered an activist opposition that progressively expanded and became influential at both the host community level and with multilateral financial institutions. In parallel to, and spurred by, this activism, a shift occurred in 1969 with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act in the United States, which required Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for certain types of industrial and infrastructure projects. Over the last four decades, there has been a global movement to develop a formal legal/regulatory EIA process for large industrial and infrastructure projects. In addition, social, health, and human rights impact assessments, with associated mitigation plans, were sequentially initiated and have increasingly influenced project design and relations among companies, host governments, and locally impacted communities. Often, beneficial community-level social, economic, and health programs have voluntarily been put in place by companies. These flagship programs can serve as benchmarks for community-corporategovernment partnerships in the future. Here, we present examples of such positive phenomena and also focus attention on a myriad of challenges that still lie ahead.impact assessment | community health | corporate social responsibility
OBJECTIVE: Onshore oil and gas projects can have large footprints with potentially significant impacts on local communities over its producing life. In complex developing world country contexts, project execution challenges are often exacerbated by a high background burden of disease and a fragile local health system. The ExxonMobil-constructed and operated Papua New Guinea (PNG) LNG Project (Project), the largest private investment in the history of Papua New Guinea, is an example of a large development in a significantly challenged community health context. Having recognized the healthrelated risks early, the Project team developed an integrated community health impact mitigation and investment plan consisting of: (i) the development of a private-public partnership with the PNG Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR) to execute a robust longitudinal surveillance system, (ii) capacity building efforts to strengthen both local and national health care and diagnostic capacity, including (a) a state of the art infectious disease research laboratory managed by PNGIMR and located at the PNG School of Medicine campus and (b) a teaching and clinical support by both PNGIMR and seconded faculty from Texas Children's Hospital and (iii) strategic impact prevention measures, e.g., water/sanitation, domestic violence, health lifestyles, executed by local NGOs across all project areas.
METHODS:Based on the findings of a pre-project health impact assessment, the Project assessed that a comprehensive integrated impact mitigation and focused capacity building program for potentially impacted communities was essential. Because of the complexity and geographical distribution of the project, control/comparison sites were also developed so that any significant changes in community health outcomes could be placed in context. Health stakeholders included the Project workforce, affected communities and both provincial and national health authorities. Interventions followed best practice in building public-private partnerships and were fit to purpose, i.e., tailored to address local and provincial / national issues that would be directly impacted by the PNG LNG Project.
RESULTS: Formal Memorandum of Understanding and Investment Agreements between ExxonMobilPNG Ltd and PNG health authorities were executed. Longitudinal surveillance included two project impact sites and two comparison sites covering over 50,000 persons. The entire surveillance system was accepted into the INDEPTH Network and is fully compliant with international health monitoring standards. The PNG LNG Project was the first oil and gas sponsored project in the 45-member, 20-country, 50ϩsite INDEPTH Network. A variety of population demographic and specialty studies have been executed that have accurately tracked changes in socio-economics and in/out migration while determining prevalence and incidence for major diseases such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections, including the first ever study of HPV in PNG women.
NOVEL/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:Key findings are ...
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