Landscape-scale Planning in the Extractives Sector – GEMMx Workshop
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Key Points from Small Group Discussions
Who can credibly initiate an integrated planning process?
- Very context dependent – may need a combination of players to address credibility with all constituents
- Indigenous peoples have initiated processes, but they are often not recognized and sometimes when people assert their plan/demands, they are criminalized or killed
- Government has a responsibility to initiate and engage, but where the government is not trusted or trustworthy, this is often not possible
- Those who initiate ideally need to have the influence, resources, capacity to shape the process well
- Political willingness is key
- Credibility of the organization may hinge on where they get their money
How should they go about it?
- Relationships should start well before the project begins
- Within a framework for planning and decision making that…
- Is inclusive of everyone from all parties involved
- Includes agreed upon terms for gathering information, planning, and decision making
- Communicates information in an understandable way
- Includes agreement on who and how to collect, communicate, manage, and own data
- Includes the ability to effectively close a site as part of the discussion of the acceptability of opening a site
- Collaboration is important – among all players and in the design of the decision making process
- Power balance issue – described as communities being concerned that the process will only arrive at a “yes”, want assurance there is the possibility of arriving at “no” ; likewise, companies want assurance that communities are willing to engage, and not reject the project out of hand.
- All the participants need to see each other as having a legitimate role in the process – having legitimate voices on the issues at hand
- Need for mentoring and capacity development for data collection
- Need for Free prior informed and continuing consent
- Need to build confidence, which requires time, money, and energy
- Need for industry to coordinate among nearby sites – who can lead this process?
What innovations in information collection and sharing can apply at a regional scale?
- Data collection process should be:
- Collective
- Based on trusting relationships
- Within context of agreed upon information-sharing protocols
- Important for information to be accessible and understandable to all
- GIS as a promising way to organize and present information
- Agreements about organization and accessibility of information should be reached in advance of landscape planning processes