Community Development Strategies

The Toolkit contains two main parts:

• 17 Tools which cover the assessment, planning, management, and evaluation phases of community development as well as stakeholder relationships.
• A Background volume, which contains the background and context to the project as well as an examination of the mineral policies and mining laws necessary for mineral activity to contribute to sustainable development.

This report seeks to build the "business case" for sponsors of large-scale, high-impact projects to treat the consent of the host community as a requirement of project development.

Social investment (SI) programmes are defined as the voluntary contributions companies make to the communities and broader societies where they operate, with the objective of benefiting external stakeholders, typically through the transfer of skills or resources. This guidance document aims to address the question of how to create successful and sustainable community investments and how to measure their success.

This study explores how communities and companies can engage in co-planning and monitoring to ensure sustainable local development benefits from the extraction of resources. Within the context of a spectrum of participation a variety of tools and mechanisms are presented in the paper. Some of these tools have been used primarily in the public sector, however companies stand to benefit from the tools in forms that are adapted to context, as they are potential vehicles to increase transparency, and thus accountability of companies, communities and governments.

Improving the management of the social and economic impacts of significant mining and industrial operations has become an increasingly important public policy issue in recent years. It is a critical element in the sustainable development agenda. This manual provides a process designed to assist Extractive Industry operations to identify and manage their social and economic impacts (both positive and negative). It also provides guidance on how to improve overall social performance where this is necessary.

The Australian minerals industry developed Enduring Value – the Australian Minerals Industry Framework for Sustainable Development to enhance its commitment to sustainable development and to build on its Industry Code for Environmental Management, the industry’s platform for continual improvement in managing environmental issues

Breaking New Ground presents an analysis of a large and heterogeneous sector through the many stages of minerals and metals exploration, production, use, reuse, recycling, and final disposal.The project assumed from the start that sustainable development could provide a useful framework to guide the minerals sector.

Harnessing the opportunities that the mining sector can bring to community development is not an easy task, and not one that can be completed quickly. Within a limited time frame the activities of seven mining operations and two projects at the pre-operational phase were reviewed and lessons drawn from these experiences as well as from other community development and poverty reduction programmes in Guinea. Examples of good practice approaches to community development in the extractive industry in other countries have also been considered. This report and the framework presented are intended as a first step in establishing a new approach to community development and are dependent on the participation and commitment of all players.