Sharing Experiences:Monitoring the Impact of Community Development

Programs Linked to Extractive Industry

Community Development Monitoring

in the Mining Sector in Guinea

December 5th, Washington DC

Ed O’KeefeSynergy Global Consulting

www.synergy-global.net

BackgroundGuinea Community Development Framework• Partners

– Government of Guinea and the IFC & World Bank• Goal

– Develop a national framework for enhancing the contribution of mining to community development

• Activities– Site visits to 9 mine projects– Government, company, NGO and donor consultation

• Current status– Central finding is issue of lack of communication– Drafting framework for stakeholder review in Jan 07– Drawing on ICMM Principles, EITI and Guinea PRSP

Findings• One of the weakest areas of company management

systems• Generally formal monitoring was one-off and ad hoc

– Very limited baseline data– Communities are monitoring companies closely– Some company staff are informally monitoring

• Diverse interpretations of ‘local’ and ‘community’– Lack of focus on PAPs, Homogenous Blob Syndrome

• Focus on social investment and public relations– Limited focus on material issues such as local

employment, infrastructure, HIV/AIDS• Few processes for disclosing monitoring information• Few processes for using monitoring information

– Not integrated with environmental or HSE monitoring– Few links to business planning

OpportunitiesWhat?• Taking an integrated approach to monitoring

– Based on systematic analysis of social impacts and the relevant social context

– Directly linked to a formal social strategy– Integrated in company management

systems and business planning processes– Part of the community engagement process– Clearly linked to:

• company plans and commitments (ESIA, RAP, etc)• community priorities and material issues• government plans (PRSP, district plans, etc)• international frameworks (G3, MDGs, ICMM, etc)

OpportunitiesWhy?

• Ensuring monitoring is adding value– Helping predict and monitor impacts,

risks and opportunities, including perceived risks

– Building trust between stakeholders• Involving stakeholders in the monitoring

process• Disclosing accessible monitoring information• Responding to issues identified in monitoring

– Demonstrating success• Contribution to business performance• Contribution to affected community

development