International Finance Corporation's Policy on Social & Environmental Sustainability

When IFC invests in extractive industry projects (oil, gas and mining projects), IFC assesses the governance risks to expected benefits from these projects. In the case of significant projects (those expected to account for ten percent or more of government revenues), risks are appropriately mitigated, and for smaller projects, the expected net benefits of projects and the risks to these from weak governance are reviewed. Where the balance of benefits and risks is not acceptable, IFC does not support such projects. IFC also promotes transparency of revenue payments from extractive industry projects to host governments. Accordingly, IFC requires that: (i) for significant new extractive industries projects, clients publicly disclose their material project payments to the host government (such as royalties, taxes, and profit sharing), and the relevant terms of key agreements that are of public concern, such as host government agreements (HGAs) and intergovernmental agreements (IGAs); and (ii) in addition, from January 1, 2007, clients of all IFC-financed extractive industry projects publicly disclose their material payments from those projects to the host government(s).