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The slides below, by Geert van Vliet of CIRAD, present a hypothesis about negotiations among companies and communities around extractives and dam projects.  I find them a compelling, simple visual of the opportunity for early, local action to support communities in engaging with operators of large-scale invesment projects.  In essence, at the start of a project, a company’s willingness to negotiate and compensate communities is high, but local communities’ capacity to negotiate is low and diffuse.  This window in time (shown on slide 13) is a key opportunity for communities to productively negotiate with companies to address concerns and establish a dialogue.  As the project progresses, this window of opportunity for negotiation gradually closes: companies’ willingness to compensate goes down, while local communities’ demands go up as they absorb negative social and environmental impacts from the project.

I agree that we need more research and reflection on if and how this hypothesis applies to companies from BRICS countries.  I believe Chinese and Indian investors are most active in, for instance, Afghanistan.  And that country is perhaps a textbook-case of the tension between the need for natural resources to maintain state revenues, and the potential for exploitation of those resources to generate or exacerbate violent conflict.  What room is there for early, constructive and conflict-sensitive support to local community actors?

I also wonder if we can adapt this hypothesis to include the third actor in this picture: government.  For example, the leverage that companies have with government prior to investment and during operations is outlined in this article by Luc Zandvliet in the Berghof Handbook.  In a nutshell, companies have the greatest leverage prior to investment to affect macro conflict, but once operations start, that leverage shifts to affecting local conflict.  Beyond companies’ leverage with government, what about local communities’ leverage with government, and more specifically, their leverage with a company to influence their government both before and during the life of a project?

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Extractive activities dams and negotiation Geert van Vliet 1998 updated 2011 ppt