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This report highlights some of the existing and emerging business drivers for improving practices and reporting on material gender issues. These are further to the legal and ethical imperatives for reporting on gender issues (as, for example, set out in international human rights legal and policy frameworks), which are also discussed. In turn it offers practical steps on how to integrate gender in sustainability reporting.

The establishment of a sector policy framework, legislation, contract design, award procedures, and regulations consistent with good practice is critical to both the promotion of investment and the protection of the public interest, and is a cornerstone of good sector management.

The importance of the subject cannot be exaggerated. “Since oil revenues are to a large part concentrated in the public sector, the question of how the oil revenue should be spent and distributed across present and future generations becomes key to any economic development”. Government authorities are faced with a number of options with respect to the allocation of resource revenues, falling under two general headings: spending (comprising consumption and investment); or saving (through debt reduction or asset accumulation).

Experience suggests that to be effective EI sector policies should be based on consultation with a broad base of stakeholders and should provide strategic direction and clarity on key sector issues. The resulting policy statements are often stand-alone documents, but they may also be found in summary form as preambles to sector legislation.

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The formal characteristics of contracts and licences matter, but the ways in which particular clauses reflect the risks and benefits of the acreage a government can offer are of crucial importance. Modern EI laws tend to give broad powers to governments to negotiate agreements with potential investors. In this way, negotiators are allowed to adjust terms to meet changing market conditions, weigh specific risks of new development areas and increase negotiating experience over time.

Most petroleum and mining laws require that international resource companies adopt some measure of preference for local goods and services. Apart from the direct benefits to stakeholders such as local businesses, entrepreneurs and communities through access to business opportunities and diversity of markets, access to capital, technology and productivity, there are wider benefits: increased employment and skills, increased domestic and foreign investment, technology and knowledge transfer from foreign companies, exports and foreign exchange and increased government revenues.

Please click here for accessing full section on the EI Source Book website.

Fully successful and sustainable EI sector management depends upon the participation of all key stakeholders – parliament, government, industry, civil society, and IFIs. While objectives and focus may differ among stakeholder groups, constructive and successful models of collaboration are emerging.

The oil, gas, and mining sectors possess features that present special challenges to their management by governments. Many of these are common to all EI sectors, but a number of differences exist as well.  Good practice requires recognition of these common and different features in the design of sector policies and institutions.

Attention to social and environmental impacts and concerns has become mainstreamed to all aspects of  EI sector management Impact assessment and mitigation plans and the institutional capacity to enforce good practice are critical to success.

Effective management capacity and monitoring are critical to ensuring compliance with the requirements set out in the preceding section. Governance systems for oversight can take different forms. One approach which may be best suited for smaller less sophisticated countries is a prescriptive /audited approach from the authorities. For in countries where there is more capacity, the requirements in the legal regime could be supplemented by placing more responsibility on the operator to work with codes of conduct developed by the operator and agreed with the authorities. Both systems need the capacity within the authority to manage the workload. To some extent this will be dependent on the size of the industry in a particular country, where there is a single mine for example; oversight should reflect that - no point in setting up something over elaborate.

Please click here for accessing full section on the EI Source Book website.