PROJECTS

CCCS started by providing social impact analysis for multilateral development institutions in China. As time passed, we built affiliations with a number of Chinese institutions, including an affiliated Center in Guangzhou, and began offering services to private enterprises.

CCCS area specializations broadened in 2003 as we assisted in projects in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. We then took a new turn in 2004, by providing specialized services for the extractive industries sector.

Currently, CCCS is working with B.P. on their Tangguh Project (Indonesia) and with Shell and Gazprom, the main investors in the Sakhalin Energy Project (Russia).

The following are descriptions of the major types of services provided by CCCS. Accompanying each description is a short list of associated projects.

Social Impact Assessment:

CCCS specializes in conducting Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) for international development projects, especially those projects affecting Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups such as the poor, women, and migrant workers.

Our consultants are also knowledgeable in issues of involuntary resettlement, land-use rights, and cultural heritage protection.

Major projects include:

Sakhalin Energy (Russia)

CCCS has been advising the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company (Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui, and Mitsubishi) on Indigenous People's Issues, most specifically by first writing the Sakhalin Indigenous Minorities Development Plan and then by serving as External Monitor for the plan. IFC in their new handbook on stakeholder engagement, points to this plan as a model of international "good practice" for its innovative approach to working with companies, governments and indigenous communities. The World Bank and EBRD have also praised the SIMDP in their publications.  

Tangguh LNG Project Social Investment Program (Indonesia)

CCCS has been working with not only BP Berau, the project sponsor, but also project lenders - the Asian Development Bank and the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation - to integrate Indigenous Peoples issues and the needs of other marginalized people in the Papua region of Indonesia into the project's Integrated Social Plan. CCCS emphasized to BP the need to bring their scattered social programs into an integrated whole and to devise strategies to avoid social conflict between indigenous and other communities.

Integrated Pastoral Development Project (China)

CCCS’ Chinese associates figured prominently in this World Bank-funded Ministry of Agriculture project in Western China. Village-level SIAs, along with training for project staff, proved to be a hallmark of this successful project in agricultural innovation.

Program 135 (Vietnam)

CCCS provided critical assessment of ethnic minority issues for a consortium of international lenders (World Bank, DfID, AusAID, SIDA, et al) regarding an initiative to support the government's program to upgrade poverty reduction efforts in minority and mountain districts. Focus was placed on sensitive issues such as encouraging people practicing shifting agriculture to settle in fixed villages.

India Infrastructure Project Financing Facility (India)

On behalf of a consortium of international lenders (Asian Development Bank, World Bank, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Germany’s KfW) CCCS crafted a Social Safeguards Framework for this major Ministry of Finance entity. Involuntary resettlement and tribal development were the key safeguards included in the plan devised for domestic lenders to follow.

Thematic Review of Social Assessment (East and Southeast Asia)

To determine how effective the World Bank’s own social assessments have been in Asia, the Bank turned to CCCS to evaluate social assessments for projects in China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The report generated pointed to the need to craft culturally appropriate and operationally useful assessments.

Social Issues Analysis and Policy Recommendation:

Any private company that has to do an Indigenous Peoples Development Plan for a multilateral institution can do no better than to contact CCCS—we’ve served on the review teams for the policies currently serving as the global standards for international development.

CCCS has worked with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Bank on updates of their Indigenous Peoples policies, authoring guides for policy implementation and reviewing the efficacy of past policy implementation.

Examples of CCCS policy work:

EBRD Study on Vulnerable Groups Safeguard Policies

In February 2007, the European Bank of Reconstruction Development (EBRD) contracted CCCS to conduct a survey of current policies safeguarding vulnerable groups at the major multilateral development banks (MDBs), as well as among companies in the private sector. Our findings were presented in a internal report for EBRD, which lays the groundwork for continuing policy studies on this newly emerging category for social protection.

Indigenous Peoples Policy Review and Updating

First for the World Bank, and then for the Asian Development Bank, and the EBRD, CCCS has been actively involved in policy impact analysis, policy rewriting, and in drafting policy guidebooks to assist MDB staff in implementing their Indigenous Peoples policies.

Indigenous Peoples Policy Guidebooks

CCCS was called upon by the World Bank in 2000 to co-edit with Bank staff to prepare a handbook for Bank staff providing advice on how to implement the Indigenous Peoples policy. Soon thereafter, both the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank requested CCCS work with them on their own versions of such a staff guidebook.

Urban Poverty Technical Assistance

The Asian Development Bank turned to CCCS in the summer of 2005 when it needed to design a technical assistance grant to advise the Chinese Government on a process to develop policy recommendations to enable poor urban migrants to access basic social services.

Cultural Brokering and Mediation:

In addition to our work in international development, CCCS provides cultural brokering and conflict mediation services. Misunderstandings and disputes between peoples of different countries and cultures is a common phenomenon in many contemporary business environments.

CCCS is particularly experienced negotiating the cultural dimensions of misunderstandings (e.g. between senior and middle management) at the intersections between Asian and American contexts.

Past intervention efforts include:

Union Bay Apparel Company (USA)

CCCS facilitated dispute resolution between the Chinese Owners/Senior Management and American Middle Management personnel of Union Bay Apparel Company by addressing major points of cultural contention, such as differing ways of showing respect, deference, as well as by communicating different needs and interests to each group in culturally appropriate terms and concepts.

UPDATE: An exciting new addition to CCCS cultural brokering experience is our work in the field of education. Upon the invitation of Matthew Guldin, Dean of Students at East Side Community High School, CCCS has been working to promote the 100% RESPECT! Campaign.

Currently being piloted in a couple of New York school, this program aims to ensure that students, teachers, and administrators all treat one another with full and equal respect at all times.

The 100% RESPECT! Campaign fits within the larger rubric of social-emotional learning, fostering the growth of caring, community-oriented citizens.

Meeting and Organizational Facilitation:

For companies that intend to expand into Asian markets, CCCS offers “overview services” examining important aspects of the social, political, cultural contexts in the target country.

Our overview services include country briefings and social-cultural contextualization needed for economic development projects.