2000, International Finance Corporation (IFC)
This Guide aims to serve as a resource guide to help International Finance Corporation (IFC) clients and other companies establish effective community development programs for communities located near or affected by their operations.
Companies, communities, governments, and NGOs all have a role to play in promoting development. Companies recognize that it is increasingly difficult to do business without building good relations with all stakeholders. Good community relations involves both engaging community members in ongoing dialogue and demonstrating to communities that they will derive development benefits from a company’s operations. Promoting community development, then, is a key to good community relations.
Though companies are acknowledging that they have a role to play in community development, many have limited experience in dealing with complex community and social issues, particularly in developing countries. Many of the examples used in this Guide draw on lessons learned from various national companies who have a long history of working closely with neighboring communities.This Guide aims to further IFC’s mission to ‘promote private sector investment in developing countries, which will reduce poverty and improve people’s lives.’ It seeks to help interested companies by drawing on the community development experiences of some of the world’s leading companies.
The Guide’s primary audience includes project managers, corporate affairs officers, community relations officers, human resource and purchasing managers, CEOs, senior executives, and others interested in doing community development work. The Guide may also be useful to:
- researchers or practitioners interested in corporate social responsibility issues
- community leaders in the vicinity of a project
- NGOs or community groups who are thinking of forming partnerships with companies
- policy makers who want to maximize the local development impact of companies
- consulting firms or individuals who are commissioned to carry out or design, and community development activities.
Each company and each community will have different needs and goals. As a result, it is difficult to set defined rules for doing community development work. This Guide lays out general principles and methods, disseminates good practice, and points readers to other resources to help develop an appropriate community development program.
The Guide’s focus is shaped by the needs of IFC clients. The examples are drawn from and tailored to developing country contexts to address issues faced in IFC-financed projects. The Guide also draws heavily on examples from sectors that have large local and regional social, community and environmental impacts. Companies in the oil, gas, mining, power, transport, tourism and agribusiness sectors, as well as large manufacturing companies, face particularly strong pressure to forge good relations with neighboring communities and have taken a keen interest in community development issues.
