One of the most significant challenges concerning developmental projects recently carried out in Turkey is this: either Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) processes have not been fully implemented in accordance with international principles and norms, which is obliged by international financiers to raise funds to these projects; or the regulations to which these processes must adhere have fundamentally conflicted with the provisions of Turkish national legislation in some basic areas. The European Union signed international conventions that regulate the principles under which SIA and EIA processes are completed; such rules are necessary to ensure developmental projects are considered sustainable, stable and equitable by relevant international organizations, such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank (WB), and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Moreover, the European Union requires that any country must adopt these international conventions before accession to the Union. Turkey neither signed the Aarhus Convention, which is the basic document outlining implementation principles of SIA and EIA processes, nor did it adapt national legislation to the Aarhus Convention and the Equator principles, the other main document regulating the principles of these processes. The conflict between the regulations dictated by SIA processes and provisions of the national legislation, and the fact that SIA processes have not been carried out in full accordance with international standards, have generated the following problems among others: retraction of funds by international financiers; unfinished projects; or attempted problem solving through superficial and inefficient measures taken long after a project's initiation. Furthermore, despite being central to the SIA process, inadequate implementation of  democratic participation mechanisms including active participation of the public as well as non-governmental organizations has generated a host of social problems. The basic assumption of this study is that while SIA and Public Participation processes implemented in accordance with international norms and principles formally uphold the principles of sustainability, stability and equitability, they fail to represent successfully the sociocultural, socioeconomic and sociodemographic specificities of Turkey. The proposed research project primarily aims to conduct a comparative analysis of SIA processes in selected developmental projects that appear to have been implemented in accordance with international norms and principles and propose a SIA procedure that follows the international principles stipulated by regional and global conventions while also attending to Turkey's specificities and needs. A secondary aim of the project proposed herein is to propose the development of institutional capacity considered essential to an effective, standardized implementation of SIA processes.