Before the Bricks: The Importance of Social Facilitation in Construction Projects
2023-10-03 12:00
Before the Bricks: The Importance of Social Facilitation in Construction Projects
A climbing wall is an artificially constructed wall with grips for hands and feet, usually used for indoor climbing, but sometimes located outdoors. Some are brick or wooden constructions, but on most modern walls, the material most often used is a thick multiplex board with holes drilled into it.
Before the Bricks: The Importance of Social Facilitation in Construction Projects
In infrastructure development, successful delivery is often measured in physical milestones: site clearance, structural progress, handover. But the true foundation of any impactful project is less visible — it is built on trust, participation, and inclusion. This is the role of social facilitation.
At Elite Consulting, we understand that a project’s success is shaped long before the first brick is laid. Especially in South Africa’s complex socio-economic landscape, construction does not happen in a vacuum — it happens within living communities. These communities must not only be considered — they must be engaged.
What is Social Facilitation?
Social facilitation is the structured process of building relationships, trust, and communication between stakeholders in a development project. It ensures that communities, local authorities, project teams, and interest groups are aligned in expectations, roles, and benefits.
It involves:
Community awareness and information-sharing
Conflict resolution and grievance management
Stakeholder mapping and engagement planning
Empowerment of local structures and forums
Ongoing participation and feedback loops
Why It Matters
Too often, infrastructure projects fail not because of technical issues, but because of resistance, unrest, or misunderstanding from communities. These risks are amplified in areas with histories of marginalisation or unmet expectations. Social facilitation mitigates this risk by creating co-ownership, not just consultation.
In projects like the Rapid School Build Programme or the PTI upgrades across Cape Town, our social facilitators work hand-in-hand with engineers and planners to ensure the work reflects community needs — and is welcomed, not rejected.
Social Value Beyond Compliance
While some frameworks mandate community engagement as part of environmental or social impact assessments, we go further. At Elite Consulting, facilitation is not compliance — it is strategic infrastructure management. It builds legitimacy, unlocks local participation, and accelerates delivery.
We don’t just ask communities for input — we equip them to influence outcomes. This includes:
Hiring local labour through transparent processes
Supporting women- and youth-led participation
Helping informal traders transition into formal precinct economies
Bridging between technical language and lived realities
A Professional Discipline
Social facilitation is not improvisation — it is a professional service, rooted in expertise and ethics. Our team is trained in stakeholder dynamics, conflict mediation, and public sector governance. We bring structure to conversations that would otherwise stall progress.
Building Trust is Building Infrastructure
In a country still rebuilding from historical inequalities, infrastructure must not just be delivered — it must be owned. Social facilitation is how we ensure that. It is the discipline of listening before designing, of building consent before concrete, and of placing people at the centre of public infrastructure.
At Elite Consulting, we don’t see facilitation as “soft work” — we see it as foundational.