Improving mining community benefits through better monitoring and evaluation

Community-based concerns about mining operations have not only engendered a negative reputation for the industry, but also instability in property rights and ongoing conflicts. Such issues often undermine the potential for mining operations, by nature a long-term enterprise, to occur in stable and consensual conditions on the basis of mutual corporate and social gain. Although the mining industry has created transparency and reporting initiatives, it continues to struggle with obtaining and maintaining a social license to operate. In response, a growing number of companies have created Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) to formalize the promises they make to mining communities through written contracts. CBAs are becoming more widespread as (quasi-) legal instruments across the world, but there are as yet no clear guidelines on their content or how they should be monitored and enforced. There are a number of fundamental concerns to be worked out, such as how to define the “community; ” the limits of a company's responsibility vs. that of other stakeholders, particularly the host government; and the desire for meaningful participation by the local community in the CBA process. This article examines the issue of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of CBAs, essential to demonstrating tangible benefits to the community. For the most part, such systems are absent in CBAs. Through field research at three mining communities/sites in Ghana (Kenyasi, Bogoso/Prestea, and Iduapriem/Tarkwa), the authors confirm the absence of visible and measurable benefits to create community acceptance and trust. We close with some principles around which such systems can be constructed.