CommDev: Topics

Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): The challenge facing large-scale mining companies, governments and civil society is to harness ASM as an activity that can contribute responsibly towards the achievement of local development objectives. Issues of governance, social and environmental management, conflict, safety, protection of communities’ and miners’ rights, and alternative livelihoods remain urgent.
Capacity Building: Extractive companies, governments and civil society all actively engage in capacity building initiatives such as: health and safety awareness, training of local service providers; training for alternative livelihoods; and developing better information systems. Capacity building should make community investments more effective and sustainable leading to improved local welfare as well as enhanced productivity and reputation of companies.
Community Foundations: To support local development, extractive companies often rely on community-level foundations to channel and oversee funds. Community Foundations collect donations into a coordinated investment and grant-making facility committed to the social and economic development of a particular place or region. In an extractive industry context, foundations will most likely be corporate foundations governed with a community spirit.
Community Investment Strategies: Community Development is the process of increasing the strength and effectiveness of communities, improving peoples’ quality of life, and enabling people to participate in decision-making to achieve greater long-term control over their lives. This involves empowering and helping communities to improve their social and physical environments, increase equity and social justice, overcome social exclusion, build social capital and capacities, and be involved in assessment and decision-making processes that influence local conditions.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Corporate Social Responsibility has been defined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) as “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.”
Education and Skills: In many communities touched by oil, gas and mining projects, education remains a significant development challenge in terms of access and quality. As such, many extractive companies invest in local schools and other education programs—vocational, adult literacy, health awareness. Companies have an interest in developing skills directly related to their operations so they have a prepared workforce.
Environment / Natural Resources Management: Management and preservation of natural environments, ecological systems, and biodiversity are essential for sustainable economic, social, cultural and business development. Environmental concerns linked to extractive industry include water quality, use of mercury, waste disposal, land grading, deforestation, gas flaring, oil spills, disruption to ecosystems, and climate change.
Extractive Industries: Extractive industries can contribute to sustainable development, when projects are implemented well and preserve the rights of affected people, and if the benefits they generate are well-used. Extractive industries can yield benefits for countries through tax revenues, foreign exchange earnings, debt payments, production sharing and rents, the provision of jobs and infrastructure, and company social programs.
Gender: The development effectiveness and sustainability of community development investments could increase significantly by taking into account how oil, gas and mining activities can benefit men and women more equally. Through engagement with female stakeholders, actions to address gender bias issues in the sector have been identified.
Health & Safety: Extractive industry presents both risks and opportunities for community health and safety. Companies typically bring access to improved medical supplies and counseling to rural communities. But in addition, extractive projects can attract ills such as drugs, prostitution and HIV/AIDs. Both large scale and small scale extractive efforts yield occupational safety hazards. But some companies invest heavily in awareness raising and procedures to limit occupation risk while also conducting campaigns to reduce secondary risks such as transport accidents and poor sanitation.
Human Rights: In the field of human rights and business, states have a duty to protect human rights including providing access to justice for victims of violations. Companies themselves have the responsibility to respect human rights within their sphere of influence. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) demands that companies consider the (potential) negative and positive implications of their activities on the human rights of stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, customers and communities in all aspects of operations. This applies to an extent that goes beyond ordinary statutory obligations. It requires a due diligence process, which guides companies in becoming aware of, preventing and managing human rights impacts within their sphere of influence.
Energy: coming soon
Indigenous Peoples: Though the term has no universal definition, 'indigenous peoples' usually refers to an ethnic group inhabiting a geographic region from which they originated or which they have occupied for many centuries.
In-Migration: Project-induced in-migration (or influx) involves the movement of people into an area in anticipation of, or in response to, economic opportunities associated with the development and/or operation of a new project. Although a project cannot be held wholly responsible for in-migration associated with the broader economic development of the region, the project should assume primary responsibility for project-induced in-migration within the project area of influence.
Labor: Demand for labor is seen by companies as one of their main contributions to local livelihoods, however, the pursuit of economic growth through employment creation and income generation should be balanced with protection for basic rights of workers.
Infrastructure: The existence of an extractive industry company in a community offers both opportunities and costs related to infrastructure. While in many cases, it can introduce or upgrade roads, transportation, electricity, water and sanitation either through direct provision or through tax or royalty payments to local government, extractive industry can also contribute to overburdening the existing infrastructure as a result of the in-migration and employment opportunities it creates.
Monitoring and Evaluation: Effective M & E of community development programs can improve management, accountability, participation, trust, learning, efficiency and development impacts. Monitoring is as much about building relationships, trust and mutual learning as it is about collecting and reporting data.
Local Conflict Management: The design and implementation of sustainable community investment and related programs in the context of extractive development projects requires careful analysis and implementation to optimize positive benefits and avoid generation of strife and conflict. While some tensions and conflicts are unpredictable, many can be anticipated through adequate contextual and social analysis of the different stakeholders.
Local Government and Development: Companies, government, civil society and donors, are piloting ways to further community development without circumventing local government and traditional leaders. This involves capacity building for local government in areas such as: revenue management, participatory planning and monitoring, transparency and communications.
Local Procurement / Local Supplier Development: Local procurement refers to the purchase of goods and services from local businesses. Typically, this occurs in emerging markets and in developed markets where local communities have expectations about participating in new opportunities.
Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement: Partnerships are ubiquitous within business, government, civil society and communities. They generally involve voluntary agreement, shared objectives, distinct accountabilities and reciprocal obligations and are expected to add value to what each partner could achieve alone.
Policy and Regulation: Numerous government policies, such as taxes, shape local development opportunities and constraints, affecting both people and business. Rules about transparency and accountability at the national, regional and local levels also help to determine the impact of extractive projects on local people.
Royalty Management: Many countries rely on revenues collected from extractive industries in the form of taxes, royalties and production shares. For some states these revenues can be the sole source of funding for social development and economic growth. Unfortunately, in some countries, the lack of accountability and transparency in revenue management can exacerbate poor governance, leading to corruption, conflict and increasing inequality. Campaigns such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative combined with more inclusive governing approaches, such as participatory budgeting, show promise for improving the impact that extractive revenues have on community welfare. Capacity building for government, civil society including media, and companies is essential to take advantage of finite extractive resources.
Water: Access to water is recognized as a universal human right. Globally, water is one of the most critical sustainability issues facing the extractives industry. Extraction from surface and groundwater is critical to the industry at all stages of the project cycle. Ineffective management of water resources by the industry can result in interruption of natural water cycles, direct impacts to ecosystems, biodiversity, increase in competition for access with other water users; and can imperil local water endowments upon which local communities rely. Sustainable water management and access – by companies, communities and local governments – requires raising the awareness and building the capacity of all parties to collaborate in order to design and implement integrated development plans to protect and maximize this critical resource.