An Assessment Of The Performance Of Public Hearings As A Vehicle For Public Participation In Infrastructure Development Projects In Thailand

As the world of globalization evolves, there are inevitable and rapid needs of developments to fulfil global and domestic, social and economic demands. Infrastructures are part of those basic requirements. These include transport, communication, energy, water supply, mining, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals, and other relatively large-scale industries. The planning and implementation of these projects present unanticipated difficulties and risks. As a result, with the necessity of both international financial funds and investments, those development projects require many special considerations, especially Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and Environment Impact Assessment (EIA). Public participation has increasingly become a key element for development projects, creating new ground rules and new expectations for a host of funded actions. These are being addressed in developed countries.

In the past decades, many of the infrastructure development projects in Thailand have been initiated and constructed with total ignorance of the public opinion on the project. Moreover, the resource utilization was not clearly specified by development planners at the national level. They may have identified resources only indirectly in the national plans. These deficiencies caused many projects to be unsuccessful both in terms of national investment and the benefit to the public. It is even worse when the deficiencies in planning for construction projects lead to a high level of undesirable conflicts between the public and the project initiators, causing both reluctance on the part of investors or lenders and undermining the nation’s opportunity for faster development.

The important decisions have, traditionally, been made by the public bureaucrats who possess a high degree of technical expertise but who are not directly accountable to the citizens of the affected localities or states. More recently, there have been groups of people formed to express dissatisfaction with the outcomes of this kind of administrative process and have called for even more appropriate public participation.

In recent years, there have been attempts to resolve the conflicts by introducing a method that allows public participation, Public Hearing. Public hearing is one mechanism of public participation that enhances public involvement in decision-making of development projects. However, the full objectives of Public Hearing attempts are not yet achieved due to a number of difficulties such as the knowledge and familiarity of the people with the process, the understanding of their rights and roles to participate, and the process of the public hearing itself. Academicians have recently joined the process. They have assisted in setting up some kinds of people-centered planning and a reorganization of bureaucracies to effectively initiate and carry out infrastructure development projects.

Problem Statement
It is believed that public hearing could be an effective channel for public participation in obtaining public consent and, hence, reducing undesired conflicts during the execution of infrastructure development projects. Nevertheless, conflicts at public hearings conducted in Thailand have repeatedly been obstacles to expediency in the country’s construction of its infrastructure projects. Although it is perceived that public hearing can be the key activity that brings benefit in collecting useful information from stakeholders for government’s decision-making, the principles and the processes for conducting public hearing are rather complicated (Bureekul, 2000). Therefore, it has been evidently and continuously seen that the public hearings conducted in Thailand have hardly been successful. In most of the cases, it appears that public hearings create conflicts and dissatisfaction.
Lack of information, participation from people, sufficient publicity, and misconduct of public hearing, etc., can be considered as some of the factors responsible for insufficiencies and failure in project planning and execution. These issues make it particularly important to study the public hearings. Questions needing answers include:
· What are the benefits of public hearings?
· How are public hearings conducted?
· What are the purposes of public hearings?
· What are the problems being encountered in public hearings?
· What can go wrong with public hearings?
· How effective are the public hearings?
· How can public hearings be improved?

A study is necessary in order to identify and conceptualize the related factors for effective practice of public hearings. Mr. Ektewan Manowong’s previous special study has brought the fundamental area of knowledge concerning public hearings, including basic answers to the questions mentioned above. However, a more comprehensive study on the matters regarding the theoretical and practical aspects of public hearing is yet to be conducted. The above basic questions were basically answered with the broad understandings and explanations that have yet to be thoroughly examined in order to assemble knowledge concerning public hearings.

Mr. Ektewan Manowong conducted a case study for his dissertation in which the key issues to be addressed were as follows;
· What are public hearings intended to do?
· Do public hearings work properly?
· Why are there problems with public hearings?
· How have public hearings been disrupted?
· Where do the conflicts originate from?
· How to effectively implement public hearings?
· How have public hearings been conducted elsewhere?

Conclusion

Major conclusion from this research is summarized according to the following concerns.

Attitudes towards public hearing
In the five main case studies, the hearing participants had overall positive attitudes towards public hearing as a method of public participation in infrastructure development projects in Thailand. However, there were some concerns on appropriateness of implementing public hearing in the cases studied, as it was considered that many project stakeholders still lack knowledge and understanding on public hearing procedures. As such, there were still different opinions on acceptability of the hearings conducted in these projects. This reflects that the attitudes towards public hearing as participation method usually create expectation of good practices of public hearing. When the hearing fails to meet such expectation, it can be considered unacceptable. Qualitative analysis of additional cases supports this statement: if the hearing is not accepted by prospective participants or project stakeholders, the initiated process is regarded as meaningless/unaccountable, resulting in distrust and more conflicts.

Evaluation and satisfaction with public hearings
Generally, public hearings in the five main cases were found to be good and satisfactory. However, when considering details of each performance aspect, it was found that the “participation” aspect was rather poor and unsatisfactory. The public hearing rated to have good and satisfactory process integrity was the most recent one (Ta Chin). Many unsuccessful public hearings previously conducted in several projects may have led to awareness on implementing effective participation. Lessons learned from previous hearings were recognized and applied. However, many of public hearing performance criteria were still poorly achieved and the participants were dissatisfied with them.
Satisfaction with public hearings’ results and contributions
The participants were satisfied with public hearing output (result: report, conclusion, and decision) and outcomes (contributions) when they thought they achieved what they expected. On the contrary, those who thought their concerns/input not adequately listened to or incorporated into the decision-making process were dissatisfied. In addition, if the hearing participants were satisfied with the hearing result, they would also be satisfied with the hearing’s influence on conflict resolution. Since the interface conflicts among project supporters and opponents were not yet dissipated, the influence of public hearing in conflict resolution was considered to be rather poor.
Effectiveness of public hearings
Public hearing effectiveness was examined by considering the combined result of process evaluation and satisfaction with both the process integrity and output/outcomes. The studied public hearings were found to have rather low to moderately low effectiveness, as they have low to moderate evaluation and satisfaction scores. The effective participation process is better structured, participative, better managed, and more supported by the resource required by the process resulting in better contribution or sharing of benefits of the hearing process and, hence, satisfying the hearing participants/project stakeholders.

Structure of public hearing process
The research found that the current public hearing regulation B.E.2539 was considered to be generally good and acceptable by the survey respondents. The regulation provides rigid guidelines to facilitate the public hearing committee to conduct the hearings. However, it needs some degree of flexibility in order to appropriately implement it in unique situation. As learned from cases studied, the widely and adequately publicized hearing better covered the relevant stakeholders. The adaptable hearing process structure is a key influence that exerts and facilitates proactive participation, convenient access to project information, adequate procedural education, and good arrangements of the hearings.

Participation in public hearing process
Although it is a heart of participatory activities, participation in the hearings was found to be generally poor. Public consultation was not adequately carried out at low degree such that most of the initiatives were planned by the authorities. Good participation in the hearing process would allow project stakeholders, especially the members of the public, to get involved early in the process initiation and preparation such as setting up the committee and public hearing issues. At the hearing, due to ineffective control and cooperation from participating groups, it was found that the principle of participation was hardly met. Two-way communication was hardly achieved and most participants still lack of competence to effectively participate. As such, the studied hearings exhibited evident barriers to participation, resulting in poor ratings and dissatisfactions with the hearing performance.

Management of public hearing process
Management of public hearing process involves consideration of what means is to be used to ensure that the manner in which the work handled in hearing preparation and execution stages creates a sense of trust among groups of project stakeholders/hearing participants about the fairness and neutrality of the process. Public relation was found to be a managerial weakness of the case-studied hearings, as it was carried out mainly to convince the public on benefits of the project without real intention to early and consistently provide adequate education on the project and participation through appropriate media. Although the hearing structure provide instructions, the hearings can be poorly managed. Arrangements of hearings play a major role in facilitating convenient and satisfactory hearings such that participation is more encouraging. Fair control with established communication rules at the hearing are also part of well managed public hearing. Besides, the effective hearing process needs to be managed by experienced and effective independent facilitator, which would be more accountable to the public.

Resources required by public hearing process
Information, education, funding, and time were all regarded as important factors for public hearing process. The agencies responsible to conduct public hearing are required to commit sufficient funds and staff to support the process. In the cases of Thailand, limited budget and inexperienced staff were found to be major obstacles to prepare and conduct the hearings. However, more important resources of effective public hearings are not direct financial prospect. The public demands project information to be timely provided. Educational and technical assistance were also considered to be essential to hearing participants, not only for the affected people but also the other groups who had less capability to comprehend complicated issues and bureaucratic procedures of public hearings. As such, in order to enhance participants’ competence, it is essential to simplify the issues into the language of the people, facilitate fundamental and local participation, and allow longer time to participate in the hearing process. Satisfaction with hearing process and its contributions was considerably driven by the communication in the process. Well-informed and educated public would understand more on the subjects under discussion. Failing this, the hearing participants felt they could not competently and effectively participate.

Significance of the Dissertation
This dissertation addresses the results of research on whether the public hearing in Thailand’s infrastructure development projects can be an effective vehicle for the project’s public participation and conflict resolution on projects. It presents a scientific assessment of public hearing performance, constituting a significant step towards understanding and implementation of public hearings in the Thai context as well as their influence on the efficiency and effectiveness of the project management concerning stakeholder values. The research’s results and findings will benefit the government in helping it to define a public participation policy as well as to establish plan for conducting and evaluating future public hearings in infrastructure development projects. Also, by learning from the case studies presented here, the project owners will be able to better plan public hearing, as a public participation scheme, in their future projects.

It is already proved here that proactive public participation is essential for project decision-making during the phases of initial planning, site selection, design, construction, and operations. It is also learned that, through enhanced public hearings, project planners and managers could improve decision-making by including early public consultation in project planning as well as conducting thorough study on project impacts to assure stakeholders’ acceptance and satisfaction with projects.

His abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract
Many infrastructure development projects in Thailand have recently faced unanticipated difficulties and risks during the planning and implementation stages, mainly due to social and environmental conflicts. Project delays and objections are undesirable because of the large amount of investment and associated costs involved. Public participation has increasingly become a key element to promote socially and environmentally sound development. There are wide arrays of public participation methods but public hearing is the most commonly used in many countries. Despite its popularity, public hearing has been criticized as being ineffective as a method of participation. In Thailand, public hearing was introduced only a decade ago. Project owners, mostly government agencies, employ public hearing mainly to settle disputes in projects. Public hearing in Thailand also faced problems and disruptions resulting in skepticisms on its performance. However, since there is no other official method of public participation available in Thailand, public hearing is always called for when public participation is needed. Although many attempts have been made to initiate and implement public hearing, there has been little research on the evaluation of this method of participation. Since more resources are being committed to public participation in projects, it is necessary to derive a framework for assessing public hearing conducted in Thailand’s infrastructure development projects. The findings can be used to improve the effectiveness of public hearings and the quality of public inputs into project decision-making.

In this study, five cases of public hearing conducted in different infrastructure projects were selected for detailed study. Public hearings in the cases were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative analysis was carried out mainly by means of questionnaire survey. The questionnaire asks public hearing participants to express their attitudes toward public hearing as a means for public participation, their evaluation of the hearing they participated in, and the level of satisfaction with the hearing process and outputs/outcomes. Participants’ rating on preparation and execution of public hearing performance criteria were analyzed through four aspects of public hearing process: structure of the process, participation in the process, management of the process, and resource required by the process. Apart from the five cases, secondary data on other cases of public hearing were also analyzed qualitatively using the same criteria. In the quantitative analysis of the five cases, the ANOVA test was used to explore attitudinal differences on public hearing method. Next, the Principal Component Factor Analysis was employed to group potential factors that have influence on hearing participants’ evaluation and satisfaction with public hearing. Finally, the Multiple Regression Analysis was performed to investigate the level of influence of the identified underlying factors upon the hearing evaluation and satisfaction.

Findings show that the public has positive attitude towards public hearing, believing that hearings provide opportunity to officially participate in projects. However, major problems are that the process is often poorly prepared and executed, making the hearing process to be of low effectiveness such that the hearing results and contributions are not satisfactory. Stakeholder consultation, information, education, participants’ role and competence, hearing arrangements and facilitation, and finally, publicity and incorporation of hearing results are among the major factors that drive successful public hearing. Since positive attitude towards public hearing opens the gateway for public hearing success, achieving the performance goals and satisfying the participants would make hearings more meaningful and constructive.