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We have learned a great deal about the causes, dimensions and indicators of conflict and harms around large-scale investment in strategic resources.  We also have growing expertise and experience in avoiding and mitigating these harms, as well as preventing and transforming such conflicts.  Although the context and task is complex, I believe it is worth exploring how we could proactively leverage this knowledge, expertise and experience to act strategically, early and locally to put communities first: letting them drive their own development, find their own solutions to conflict, and assert and protect their rights.  There may be useful avenues to support local action to prepare communities to engage constructively with the social, environmental and other issues large-scale investments bring, and find ways for them to have a voice in the process that will determine their future.  In the long run, well-informed and empowered communities contribute to better outcomes for everyone – for the communities themselves, the companies they engage with, and those who govern them.

1.  Large-scale investments, conflict, communities

Large-scale investments with intense use of land and water resources, such as those in agribusiness, infrastructure, oil, gas and mining, can pose social and environmental risks for local communities, and can cause or contribute to socio-environmental conflicts.  Generally speaking, a company’s approach – whether it is conflict-sensitive, the degree and scope of their community engagement, their attention to the distribution of the project’s socio-economic benefits – can feed or help avoid these harms and conflicts.  Even so, well-meaning companies may not always get it right, and a country’s political, institutional and legal frameworks, as well as a project’s legacy, often add further complexity to reducing harms and preventing conflict.

A set of toolkits and guidance notes notes published by a joint United Nations and European Union framework team observe that violent conflict in the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources is most likely to occur where local communities have been systematically excluded from decision-making, when benefits are not (or are not seen to be) fairly distributed, when the project excessively impacts the community’s economy, society and environment, when funds are mismanaged, and when institutional or legal frameworks are inadequate.  And these are also the issues cited in more than half of the complaints communities made to the World Bank Group’s private sector independent accountability mechanism, the CAO/Ombudsman, in 2012 for agribusiness, infrastructure, extractive and other projects:  socioeconomic concerns, due diligence, consultation and disclosure, land and water, and community health and safety, as captured in the CAO’s annual report.

2.  Experience in reducing harms, preventing and transforming conflict

Some companies are learning from past mistakes, and realizing the significant cost of those mistakes, as well as the value of getting it right – valuable not only for them, but also for communities, governments and other stakeholders.  Such learning means companies are increasingly setting up grievance mechanisms, and improving the manner, scope, depth and timing of their engagement processes.  More generally, many are making voluntary commitments to uphold international standards on responsible business conduct, and are bound by new hard laws, such as the Dodd-Frank Act in the United States, and the European Union’s recently adopted revenue transparency law.  Changes are also happening in national governance, such as the dozens of countries that have been or are openly working towards implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which works to improve transparency by creating a report that compares the payments companies say they make to a government with the payments governments say they receive.

But such learning is on-going.  And many large-scale investments are public-private ventures that may complicate the approach a private company or the government would take on its own, and significant legacies of mistrust on all sides further adds to the complexity.  Experience has shown that in complex and challenging circumstances, an outside facilitator can often help rebuild trust and facilitate constructive dialogue.  A growing number of professionals around the world have expertise in facilitating dialogue and using consensus-based approaches to prevent and transform this type of conflict, such as the colleagues I have been supporting to build a global community of practice of professionals experienced in helping communities and companies, as well as governments, engage constructively to find their way to rights-compatible, interest-based solutions to common challenges.  Depending on the particular context, such dialogue processes may be among the communities themselves, between representatives of the several communities affected by a project and the company, or both.

Calls to build local capacity have been made many times, and most recently I heard such a call at a conference in late 2012 that brought together participants from multilateral agencies, companies, communities and governments with experience in using practical approaches to resolving these types conflicts.  There, I heard a call to liberate capital to build the capacity of communities to address issues locally before they escalate, to prioritize their role in their development, and to raise awareness of local, early conflict prevention – especially around investments that are not made through banks or investment financing.

We can do more to proactively support local action where it is needed, by promoting effective international accompaniment of local initiatives, fostering capabilities and accelerating uptake of learning, as captured in an action framework for conflict prevention in the context of large-scale investment in fragile environments, which emerged from a one year multi-stakeholder process on business and peacebuilding.

3.  Can we use big data to empower communities to avoid conflict?

Many tools and actors are needed to respond to the call of liberating capital to put communities first, and I am curious about the possibility of constructing an actionable global map of actual and potential countries and communities at risk of conflict around and harms from large-scale investment.  The purpose of the map would be as an early warning tool for conflict prevention, and aim to increase the flow of information both horizontally among communities, as well as a form of advocacy in sharing information vertically to foster international accompaniment of local initiatives.

The map could integrate a number of different types of remote descriptive data, such as contextual data and satellite imagery, with local input, such as citizen reporting, participatory conflict analyses or surveys.  The descriptive data could be the map’s baseline, and consist of superimposed layers of data on land, water, inequality, poverty, perceptions of rights, corruption and governance, peace and conflict, investment flows.  Much of this data is available already, such as from the World Bank using its Data Visualizer.  The baseline may be useful in identifying potential hotspots of countries or communities at risk, but its usability is limited given the dynamic, interconnected and complex nature of conflict-affected situations.

The baseline may still serve as a preliminary guide of where to seek and add input gathered by local, and preferably indigenous, analysts about local tensions, unrest and conflict around large-scale investments.  This local data could be generated and owned by communities.  A number of tools exist for citizens or organizations to collect and map data using mobile phones, such as KoBoToolbox, OpenData Kit, Peacebuildingdata.org, Magpi, Frontier Digital Gazette, Ushahidi’s Crowdmap and Stamen Design’s Walking Papers.  In some places, local civil society organizations are already systematically gathering data on local conflict, or others are collecting it on an ad hoc basis, and either of these data sets could potentially be integrated with the baseline.  In other places, obtaining such local input and perspectives would only be possible with attention to the conflict context and the possible unintended negative consequences of obtaining it.  Saferworld and Conciliation Resources’ People’s Peacemaking Perspectives project was such an exercise, producing participatory conflict analyses in 18 countries by partnering with local organizations, and working with local civil society to build their capacity to contribute to decisions and actions affecting them beyond the life of the project.

In theory, a map of this sort could be a platform to systematically collect local perspectives on conflict, and in doing so help raise awareness of the possibility of early, local conflict prevention where it is needed and wanted.