(3)Supporting Community-Driven Early Engagement Around Natural Resource Extraction in Fragile States

摘要

Industrial extraction of natural resources carries a high risk of leading to violent conflict, especially in already fragile states, and there is reason to believe that early engagement could mitigate that risk. Extractive companies are most open to negotiating with affected communities in certain early stages of the project cycle, providing the greatest opportunity for productive engagement. But these early windows of opportunity are underutilized, in part because the evidence about which mechanisms work in a given context is thin and anecdotal. Participatory processes have long been recognized as an effective approach to reducing the risk of conflict related to industrial extraction. The authors have identified an initial range of such approaches that can be used by community-driven initiatives early in the project cycle, including participatory land use planning, community-controlled impact assessments, consultation or community protocols, negotiated agreements, community-driven grievance mechanisms, enterprise facilitation, and equity participation. Possible company processes include collective industry action, making the business case for early engagement (financial returns on early engagement and the costs of not engaging), and conditioning entry or expansion on addressing potential drivers of conflict. For processes among multiple stakeholders, these include dialogues at local, national and regional levels, participatory monitoring, joint fact-finding, frameworks and oversight boards. The recently launched Early Engagement in Extractives (EEE)program aims to enhance the capacity of communities vulnerable to harm to participate meaningfully and at early moments in decisionmaking regarding industrial natural resource extraction activity, with a goal of reducing violent conflict. EEE will provide resources to community-driven initiatives at a range of pilot sites, in the form of access to networks, information, participatory tools, and funding. Additionally, EEE aims to support community engagement by facilitating community-to-community exchanges, and by engaging systemically influential actors such as corporate executives, investors, and international financial institutions.