Cross-Cultural Consulting Services (CCCS) is an anthropologically-oriented consulting firm based in the USA that supports private and public sector actors in the fields of Indigenous Peoples Safeguards Compliance, Indigenous Peoples Policy Analysis, Restorative Justice in Education and cross-cultural dialogue and mediation. Unique among other consultancies, CCCS specializes in policy frameworks and project applications safeguarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and other stakeholders who are particularly vulnerable to social impacts arising from development projects. As one of the few international firms to have successfully done so, CCCS is particularly adepts at guiding projects to compliance with the requirements of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) with Indigenous Peoples. Our particular emphasis is on establishing and maintaining cross-cultural communication among community, corporate, and government stakeholders.
CCCS helps client organizations achieve positive developmental outcomes via design and implementation of social assessments and impact analyses, social management systems, progressive strategies for participatory self-governance among project-affected communities, consultation and grievance redress mechanisms, and regulatory compliance evaluation and performance monitoring. We emphasize collaborative production of required social documentation and social action plans which meet Good Practice standards when that makes sense in a particular project context.
We also convey Advisory Services to Project Management and Staff by:
- Providing experienced senior social consultants to work with project management to evaluate alternative social engagement strategies
- Raising the capacity of project social development teams through collaborative work approached in-house, in the field, or at a distance
In our capacity as social development consultants, however, we never speak on behalf of the people and communities with whom we engage. We act instead as interlocutors—utilizing our anthropological sensitivity to cultures (including the cultures and values of corporations and governments) to help all parties to understand and overcome the challenges of cross-cultural dialogue. We operate according to the principle that all stakeholders are worthy of mutual respect and have the right to be heard.
Click here to read more about the range of consulting services that we offer.
Click here to read CCCS’ Code of Ethics, which guides all our work.
CCCS Associates are competent in broad applications of social development approaches. We select our consultants for their grounded familiarity with different linguistic and cultural communities, garnered from extensive time in the field and applied project design and review experience. Many of our Associates have worked at international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, and bring to our project teams valuable experience in liaising between governments, companies and civil society and other stakeholder groups.
Raising project in-house capacity. In our role as a social consultancy, CCCS prefers to work as a complement to local project teams. That is, we utilize our international experience to advise and empower local project teams to achieve global standards in their social analysis and project planning work. We find that it is best for international consulting teams not to simply and belatedly “review” planning measures and reporting documents, but rather to work together with local colleagues from the beginning to jointly plan all projects—combining local and international knowledge and know-how.
We also actively seek out local experts, both women and men, who are themselves members of any ethnic minority groups affected by a proposed development initiative to join and guide our project teams. This locally-oriented expertise, combined with the depth of our corporate experience in all manner of social report preparation and implementation, enables CCCS to serve as a one-stop location for social development services.
CCCS Associates have helped resolve conflicts and improve inter-group collaboration in a wide variety of settings. Where clients recognize that misunderstandings are causing a breakdown in group cooperation that threaten collective goals, CCCS Associates can help investigate the context of such misunderstandings and develop approaches and strategies to assist clients in creating a more positive workplace. By applying anthropological understandings to the often hidden assumptions people bring to their social interactions, our Associates have helped many organizations—schools, government departments, international development agencies and private firms—to improve inter-group office and workplace dynamics by emphasizing inclusion, transparency, and mutual respect.
In this new initiative, CCCS CEO Dr. Greg Guldin is offering his decades-long social development experience to support International Financial Institutions (IFIs), private firms, and government agencies in their implementation of social standards requirements via the new RSCA approach.