Community Development Toolkit
20 July 2012
This toolkit sets out how mining can contribute to community development and provides 20 practical tools to support community development for all stages of the community development process across the mine life – from exploration through construction, operations, and eventually decommissioning and closure, including the post-closure environment.
Summary
- ICMM members commit to support the development of the communities and countries they operate in.
- Community development is the process of increasing the strength and effectiveness of communities, improving people’s quality of life and enabling people to participate in decision making to achieve greater long-term control over their lives. It goes beyond mitigating social impacts and focuses on strengthening community viability and creating local benefits for people that last beyond the lifetime of the mining operation.
- The mining and metals industry can play a central role in community development by acting as an influence for positive change in areas that may otherwise have little, if any, opportunity for economic and social development.
- Often, the most sustainable beneficial legacies that community development programs around a mining and metals operation may leave are in the skills and capacities that training, employment and education programs for local people provide.
- Working in partnership is critical to sustainable community development, and this Toolkit aims to support a wide range of organisations working together around a mine site or region, including companies, government agencies, community organisations, NGOs etc.
- The 20 tools cover building relationships with communities, planning the resources required, assessing the potential risks and impacts, managing risks and maximising opportunities and monitoring and evaluating community development activities.