Extractive sector

Enterprises can contribute to positive social and economic development when they involve stakeholders, such as local communities, in their planning and decision making. This is particularly true in the extractive sector, which is associated with extensive social, economic and environmental impacts.

The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement in the Extractive Sector provides a practical framework to help practitioners in the mining, oil and gas industries to identify and manage risks with regard to stakeholder engagement activities to ensure companies play a role in avoiding and addressing adverse impacts as defined in the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

The guidance - developed with the support of a multi-stakeholder advisory group and was the subject of an online public consultation - also includes an assessment framework for industry to evaluate their stakeholder engagement performance and targeted guidance for specific stakeholder groups such as indigenous peoples, women, workers and artisanal and small scale miners.

Main recommendations of the Guidance

• Integrating stakeholder engagement into project planning and regular business operations through sharing of decision-making power with interested and affected parties;
• Practising stakeholder engagement that is driven by stakeholders through ongoing consultation and follow-through;
• Developing a stakeholder engagement strategy which prioritises engagement with most severely affected rather than most influential stakeholders

See also the Sourcing gold from  artisanal and small-scale gold mining