From the Forward: Grievance mechanisms are increasingly important for development projects and extractive sectors where ongoing risks or adverse impacts are anticipated. They serve as a way to meet requirements, prevent and address negative human rights impacts, community concerns, reduce risk, and assist larger processes that create positive social change. Today, many companies employ ad hoc or exclusively internal processes to address grievances including the Barrick PJV. Unfortunately, these systems often produce less than satisfactory outcomes from the perspective of the company and/or the community. Recognizing this and noting a lack of effective alternatives, companies and communities are becoming more proactive in their efforts to design and build more effective strategies for addressing community grievances.
Yet it is often challenging for companies to design and implement successful grievance mechanisms that suit the project context. Recognizing the challenge, the ATA offers its position on how PJV can best design its project-level grievance mechanisms pursuant to United Nations Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights [The Guiding Principles] and an Ipili/Engan Culturally-Appropriate Grievance Mechanism.
This report on the Gross Human Rights Violation Issues and the “Way Forward” or the guide also emphasizes the importance of communication and coordination among the PJV-Barrick, ATA, communities, and other stakeholders directly affected by the PJV’s operations. We have learned from many years of experience that open dialogue and collaborative grievance resolution simply represents good business practice—both in managing for human and environmental risks and in furthering the community development objectives.
This report is offered as a companion to Performance Standards and accompanying Guidance Notes published by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other International Human Rights Organizations. These standards set forth the role for the PJV’s Operational Grievance Mechanisms for the Barrick PJV’s negative human rights impacts its operations has caused in this reports last chapter the “Way Forward”.
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