This guide is written for local CSOs, human rights defenders and community rights advocates in Africa and beyond. “Biashara Na Haki” Part 2 focuses on practical tools and steps to identify business and human rights impacts and obtain remedy. The guide encourages a constructive approach to engagement that favours collaborative strategies such as negotiation and joint problem solving, and campaigning where necessary.

The guide is a co-creation by me, Jeroen de Zeeuw, Rose Kimotho and Caitlin Pierce.

The post Co-Creator of Amnesty International toolkit on Business & Human Rights first appeared on Communities First.

CONAKRY (March 21, 2019) – A group of civil society organizations in Guinea Conakry today asked the Guinean government to implement radical changes to the text of a proposed policy for relocating and compensating communities affected by major development projects, including hydroelectric dams and mines in a country thought to hold more than half the world’s supply of bauxite.

According to an analysis released today by the civil society group, the proposal developed by the South African consulting firm SRK, with funding from the German Agency for International Cooperation for Development (GIZ), has no grounding in Guinean law and fails to respect the economic and cultural needs of the communities in the path of the development projects. And rather than protecting local people, as envisioned by Guinean political leaders and German funders, the new policy could violate the human rights of more than 100,000 rural Guineans.

“The goal of this policy is to limit the devastating impacts of hydroelectric dams and mining projects in particular,” said Houdy Bah, mayor of the rural commune of Sangarédi. “As written, however, far from leading to fair and equitable compensation, the policy risks exacerbating the tensions and conflicts that are already occurring.” In its current form, according to the civil society analysis, the policy would prevent even GIZ from adhering to its own human rights policy.

Presented today by civil society organizations at a press briefing in Conakry, the analysis reports that the proposed policy is flawed, but it shows as well that that the government has presented the text of the policy on relocation and compensation to only 12 people outside of Conakry – and that in a country of more than 12 million people. The analysis notes that the government did not consult local authorities, elected officials and experts, such as mayors, traditional leaders, rural planners, agricultural engineers, environmental technical staff and sociologists, even though they should be key–not only to establish such a policy, but to implement it. Finally, the analysis charges that local communities, although they are at the heart of this process and will be the first ones impacted by it, have not had the chance to comment on this text and few know it is being developed. 

“Guinean rural communities are essentially dependent on access to land and natural resources for their survival, and therefore must be consulted on decisions affecting their access to these resources, in line with international human rights standards,” explains Mamady Koivogui, from the national NGO Association Mines Sans Pauvreté.

Civil society organizations are requesting a minimum period of six months to allow the Government’s Inter-ministerial Committee to conduct wide consultations in rural areas where the policy will be implemented.

In addition to these consultations, civil society organizations report that the current text of the policy does not respect several human rights. Among other things, it does not prohibit forced evictions of local communities nor does it ensure a last resort to resettlement when it is in the public interest. It also lacks mechanisms to secure the legitimate land rights of local communities, to allow them access to justice, and to ensure free consultation and the sharing of detailed information with communities.

A country rich in mining resources

Guinea’s massive stores of bauxite—an estimated 25 billion tons—and its potential for hydroelectric power, have captured the interest of investors from China, Russia, France, the United Arab Emirates, and the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation. The country also recently was selected to host the African Center for Mineral Development, which aims to support a strong role for minerals in ensuring the continent’s economic future. 

“The exploitation of bauxite is extremely invasive,” said Mamadou Maladho Diallo, from the NGO Convergence Globale des Luttes pour la Terre et l’Eau–Afrique de l’Ouest. “Land has been laid bare on surfaces of considerable magnitude and at an impressive speed, without any assessment of the long-term impact of these mines on local communities.”

Threats of displacement of thousands of rural villagers to make way for large development projects, particularly mining and hydroelectric dams, are increasing. In 2015, for example, about 380 families were forcibly evicted from their ancestral landsin Kintinian commune to expand an open-pit gold mine controlled by the mining giant, AngloGold Ashanti and supported by Nedbank (South Africa), an International Finance Corporation (IFC) lender. More recently, residents of 13 villages in western Guinea formally filed a complaint with the IFCfor financing the extension of a harmful bauxite mine. The 540 complainants allege that the project seized their land, destroyed their livelihoods and damaged the local environment.

“After years of hesitation, the Guinean government has demonstrated unprecedented political will to regulate the compensation and resettlement of communities affected by development projects,” said the Honorable Saikou Yaya Barry, National Assembly deputy. “But the government will be judged by its actions and not by its intentions. Its commitment to sustainable development will be revealed as a fraud if the government adopts this policy as it is now and fails to align it with the laws of Guinea and the will of its people.”

“The fact that a country like Guinea, with the world’s largest known reserves of bauxite, has no national policy to protect people or the environment is very concerning,” added Saa Pascal Tenguiano, Executive Director of the NGO Centre de Commerce International pour le Développement. “That’s why this process cannot fail. Absolutely all mining countries need such standards. Not just for us, but for everyone. We are here to help the government to do this right.”

Analysis is available at:

https://communitiesfirst.net/analysis-of-guinea-resettlement-reference-document_201903/

Annex to the analysis, including a technical note and proposed law is available (in French only) at:

https://communitiesfirst.net/note-technique-du-collectif-reinstallation-guinee_201903/

The post An effort to address impact of massive development projects on rural communities in Guinea Conakry instead threatens to violate rights of more than 100,000 people, according to analysis released today by civil society groups first appeared on Communities First.

(March 8, 2019 – Conakry) – Residents of 13 villages in western Guinea have filed a formal complaint against the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private-sector arm, for funding the expansion of a harmful bauxite mine. The 540 complainants allege that the IFC-financed project, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée, has grabbed their land, destroyed their livelihoods and damaged the local environment.

The complaint, filed with the IFC’s independent watchdog, the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, details violations of the IFC’s environmental and social Performance Standards and international law. Most of the world’s development banks have established such grievance mechanisms to monitor compliance with their environmental and social policies and address complaints from impacted communities.

The complainants are seeking full and fair redress for the harms they have suffered, along with protection from future violations. They have asked the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman to facilitate mediations with the IFC and Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée to address their grievances.

“The lands on which we and our ancestors have lived and farmed for centuries have been almost totally consumed by CBG,” said Mamadou Lamarana Bah, one of the complainants.  “With no more land, no more forests, no more water, how are we going to survive?

The villagers have lost agricultural land, which has led to a significant decline in their incomes and quality of life, and access to their water resources, which have been polluted, among other harmful impacts. The situation is especially perilous for the residents of Hamdallaye village, who have been told by the company that they will be imminently resettled, without their consent, in a former mining area that was not properly rehabilitated.

The complainants are being represented by two Guinean organizations, Centre du Commerce International pour le Developpement (CECIDE) and Association pour le développement rural et l’entraide mutuelle en Guinée (ADREMGUI), and the U.S. human rights organization Inclusive Development International.

The impoverished nation of Guinea is home to the world’s largest bauxite reserves. Mining companies have flooded the country in recent years, despite serious social and environmental concerns raised by Human Rights Watch and others. Bauxite mined by Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée is processed into aluminum that is used by major consumer brands to make cars, beverage cans and technology. Yet few Guineans benefit from such projects.

“International mining companies have been making a fortune off of Guinea’s rich mineral resources, while the communities impacted by mining have quite literally been left in the dust,” said Mathilde Chiffert, West Africa Legal Coordinator for Inclusive Development International.  “It’s high time for local communities to get a fair share of the benefits from mineral extraction.”

Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée is a joint venture between the Guinean government; the U.S. aluminum corporation Alcoa; the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto; and the Guernsey-registered Dadco. In 2016, the IFC provided a $200 million loan to expand the venture’s mining operations, with the U.S. government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation providing an additional $150 million.

A further $473 million came from a syndicate of commercial banks: France’s Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole and Natixis; the German affiliate of ING bank, ING-DiBa; and two Guinean banks, Société Générale de Banques en Guinée and Banque Internationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie de la Guinée, a member of the BNP Paribas group.

The German government guaranteed a portion of the financing through its Untied Loan Guarantees program.

Since it began operations in 1973, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée has mined large areas of land in the area surrounding the town of Sangaredi, located in the lush Boké region. For years, the joint venture has denied the land rights of local communities, creating immense frustration among the population.

“We look forward to engaging in an equitable dialogue process with CBG, facilitated by an independent mediator to resolve the long-standing grievances of the complainants,” said Tenguiano Pascal, Executive Director of CECIDE.

The complaint is available at:

In English: https://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CBG_CAO-Request-for-Mediation_FINAL-EN.pdf

In French: https://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/CBG_CAO_Request-for-Mediation_FINAL-FRE.pdf

For further reading, see:

“What Do We Get Out of It?” The Human Rights Impact of Bauxite Mining in Guinea, Human Rights Watch, October 2018

The post Thirteen Guinean villages lodge complaint against World Bank for financing destructive bauxite mine first appeared on Communities First.

Forced Relocation of Community Through Violence, Intimidation, and Exclusion at AngloGold Ashanti’s Mine in Kintinian, Guinea

Conakry, January 31, 2017 – South African gold-mining giant AngloGold Ashanti acquired land to extend its open pit gold mine in Guinea through violence, intimidation, and other unethical behavior, according to a report released by Guinean civil society organizations today.

The report examines a multi-year effort by AngloGold and its Guinean subsidiary, SAG, to evict approximately one thousand residents of “Area One” – a part of the village of Kintinian II in the northeastern corner of the country – to make way for a new open-pit mine. Through interviews with nearly one hundred affected villagers, government officials, and company representatives, the authors show that the community was excluded from consultation over the fate of the land, brutally repressed when they organized protests, and coerced into signing relocation agreements that they did not understand and that do not meet international standards.

In March 2015, SAG announced to the Guinean government that it would need to end its existing operations around Kintinian unless it was able to gain access to Area One by May 2016. In the wake of SAG’s threat – which was only too credible in a country from which at least two major mining companies have withdrawn their investments in the last few years – the company and the government were willing to go to great lengths to secure access to the land. “The mining sector in Guinea has been plagued by land grabs, labor violations, broken promises, and even massacres, and AngloGold has perpetuated this pattern at Kintinian,” said Aboubacar Diallo, Program Director for CECIDE, one of the Guinean organizations that authored the report.

The report documents a wide range of abuses against Area One residents, including:

• Physical violence. When negotiations between Kintinian residents and SAG over the terms of relocation broke down, the Guinean government sent security forces, including the “Red Berets,” a group of special forces with well documented links to gross human rights abuses, to force locals to relinquish their land.

These heavily armed personnel brutally repressed peaceful protests, treating the local population as if they were military targets – “as if we were rebels,” in the words of one resident. “They stormed the village to force us to sign the documents and cede our houses,” explained another. Many were injured, including a young girl who was hit by a bullet in her chest and neck, and whose parents just managed to save her life.

The security forces also damaged and stole property in the course of armed attacks on civilians. “The military started to beat us, they stole our telephones, they smashed doors to perpetrate thefts” said one witness. “They broke into my young brother’s shop. They took his money and his merchandise after beating up his shopkeeper,” recalled another.

• Intimidation to achieve relocation goals. Immediately after the suppression of the protest, armed soldiers accompanied SAG’s agents to survey residents’ household assets and pressured them to sign the inventories. “They surrounded the village and they sought out the inhabitants one by one to go to be inventoried by force,” recalled one resident. Residents describe having been “encircled” during the inventory by the military at a distance of “zero meters with hateful faces.” “The soldiers carried weapons and they threatened us to sign,” said one. “The soldiers were present and everyone was afraid.”
• Lack of transparency. AngloGold Ashanti ascribes to international norms on involuntary displacement, which require consultation with the affected population on relocation plans, and that all information should be shared in a language that they can understand. However, the consultant SAG hired to develop its resettlement plan did not consult with residents of Kintinian II. Moreover, villagers were pressured to sign documents in French – which very few can understand – without the opportunity to learn about their rights and options. The agreements they signed may be null and void under Guinean law.
• Exclusion of the vulnerable, including women and children. SAG agents’ meetings with Area One residents were almost entirely with adult men; women and children were largely excluded. Many women testified that they knew nothing of the inventory or relocation process, which was instead managed by their son or husband. As a result, many wives, mothers, and children lost their land, completely without warning.

“We called on SAG last summer to suspend the evictions, but they went ahead with their illegal actions,” said Fréderic Foromo Loua, President of MDT, one of the report’s authors. Residents were forced to leave their homes in May of last year; since then they have been left to their own devices to find temporary accommodations. Most of the affected people continue to hold out for the company to revisit the practices that have caused them harm, while only a few have just recently accepted the keys to the resettlement homes that the company has built for them.

The authors conclude that the actions of AngloGold Ashanti, SAG, and the Guinean security forces violate Guinean law and international standards for involuntary relocation. They therefore:

• Call on the Guinean government to repair the damage caused by its defense and security forces and ensure respect for human rights;
• Demand that SAG and its parent company AngloGold Ashanti carry out a public audit to assess and remedy the involuntary resettlement procedure for Area One; and
• Counsel the Kintinian community to act peacefully in defense of its interests and avoid social division.

Download here:

• Press release in English in PDF
• Press release in French in PDF
• Fact-Finding Mission Report in English
• Fact-Finding Mission Report in French

Media contacts: 

Centre de Commerce International pour le Développement (CECIDE) – CECIDE promotes and defends the social, economic and cultural rights of Guinean communities, and their involvement in the design and implementation of public policies for development.

Les Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT) – MDT focuses on the defense and promotion of human rights; it was founded by Guinean lawyers and young professionals in the legal industry to fight human rights violations in Guinea.

MDT and CECIDE have been accompanying the residents of Kintinian since 2010 on issues such as the promotion and defense of rights and obligations, prevention and conflict management, and capacity building for legal experts and local government.

Communities First – A small business working in the area of international development consulting, Communities First LLC provides technical program and advisory services to civil society and government actors on human rights-based development in the context of extractive industries, corporate accountability and natural resource governance.

Communities First is supporting CECIDE and MDT in their work on behalf of the displaced population of Kintinian, as well as other communities in Guinea.

Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA) – ACA helps West African communities that are threatened by the destructive impacts of extractives-led development to take control of their own futures. ACA works directly with communities to design their own sustainable development plans and advocate to achieve those plans, and it builds and supports networks of lawyers and other professionals that will serve communities in need.

ACA is providing strategic legal support to CECIDE and MDT as part of their participation in the Public Interest Lawyering Network for West Africa (PILIWA), which ACA coordinates.

The post Violence, Intimidation, Exclusion – NGOs report on resettlement at AngloGold Ashanti’s mine in Guinea first appeared on Communities First.

This translation completes the existing set of publications of this Guide, which includes the original French full-length version, a summary in French, and a summary in English. More information about this publication is available here.

The post Now available! English translation of the Guinea Guide first appeared on Communities First.

How does a community keep a sense of hope alive in the face of the grinding poverty, recurring intimidation, and house-shaking explosions that accompany life next to a gigantic open-pit gold mine? I asked myself this question again and again last week, over the course of a five-day fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of abusive resettlement in Kintinian in Upper Guinea.

The people of Kintinian have long had a poor relationship with Société AngloGold Ashanti de Guinée S.A. (SAG) – the Guinean subsidiary of South African mining giant AngloGold Ashanti – thanks to environmental degradation, unmet demand for local jobs, compensation disputes, favoritism, broken promises, and an overall perceived failure of industrial mining to bring tangible benefits to affected communities. In this context, the company’s decision to relocate about a thousand residents in order to expand into a new zone – called “Area One” – has been highly contentious.

As the Executive Director of Advocates for Community Alternatives, I was asked to join this fact-finding mission by Lien De Brouckere of Communities First, to provide strategic public interest litigation support to two Guinean NGOs: CECIDE and Même Droits pour Tous (MDT). As they publicly affirmed in late August, these two groups are trying to ensure that SAG and the Guinean government respect the communities’ legal rights as the company expands its operational footprint and relocates the residents of Area One. Our fact-finding team also included Guinean journalists and environmentalists, and we were ably supported by a group of courageous local professionals facing tremendous corporate and government pressure. While we have yet to compile and analyze the survey results of the nearly 100 resident property owners our team surveyed, I can say that our anecdotal findings definitely give cause for concern.

First, SAG and the Guinean military worked in concert to carry out an inventory of household assets in Area One in the immediate aftermath of the military’s violent repression of a protest against that very inventory. Military misconduct and violence (including by the bérets rouge – who were involved in the egregious human rights abuses during the stadium massacre of 28 September) were especially high in the days immediately preceding the inventory. This included arrests, threatening to fire on people, burning down huts, destroying homes, shooting tear gas inside people’s homes, widespread looting and more. Suffice it to say that this made people feel intimidated and led them to accept inventories that they deemed incomplete and inadequate. As one of the elders told us: “the gun made us cede our lands.” This raises a number of concerns, including an expectation under the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights to try to prevent public security forces with a track record of human rights violations (such as the bérets rouges) from providing any security services at its sites.

Second, almost no one we surveyed in Area One had heard of, let alone understood the purpose or content of, SAG’s Resettlement Action Plan (RAP), most especially the compensation matrix that determines the values at which SAG will compensate different types of assets. This public document must be developed with the full participation of affected communities, according to international standards on resettlement that AngloGold claims to follow. (In fact, the RAP itself states that affected communities were excluded from consultations to develop it.) In particular, most women surveyed were completely in the dark about the procedure for resettlement and the terms of compensation that were offered to their families, despite a requirement that special care should be taken to ensure that vulnerable and excluded segments of the populations are informed and consulted during resettlement.

Finally, while our analysis will certainly show more cause for concern, I’ll end here by noting that SAG repeatedly tried to pressure community members into leaving their temporary accommodations (their homes having been destroyed since June) and moving to the relocation site, even though construction was not yet finished and the relocation homes had no provision for kitchens, water, electricity, or flood control – a contradiction of SAG’s own Resettlement Action Plan. One such attempt was made the day before our fact-finding mission arrived, in an apparent attempt to ensure that our group would arrive only to discover that the process was finished and that there were no facts to be found.

We’ve asked SAG and AngloGold Ashanti for their responses to a number of these issues and will confront them with the full results of the survey once they’ve been processed. With luck, this intervention can help support non-violence, and guarantee that the people of Kintinian receive the benefit of all the rights and protections of the laws and international standards that AngloGold Ashanti professes to respect.

« Le fusil a fait que nous avons cédé notre terre. » – Réinstallation abusive pour l’expansion d’une mine d’or en Haute Guinée

Comment une communauté peut-elle garder un sentiment d’espoir face à l’extrême pauvreté, l’intimidation récurrente, et les dynamitages qui font trembler les maisons – le tout faisant partie de la vie à côté d’une mine d’or gigantesque à ciel ouvert ? Je me suis posé cette question maintes fois la semaine dernière, au cours d’une mission d’enquête de cinq jours qui avait pour but d’établir les faits à la base des revendications concernant la réinstallation abusive à Kintinian en Haute Guinée.

Les habitants de Kintinian souffre depuis longtemps de mauvaises relations avec la Société AngloGold Ashanti de Guinée S.A. (la SAG) – la filiale guinéenne du géant minier sud-africain AngloGold Ashanti – grâce à la dégradation environnementale, la demande non satisfaite pour les emplois locaux, les conflits autour de la compensation, le favoritisme, les promesses non tenues, et la perception d’un échec global de l’exploitation minière industrielle d’apporter de vrais avantages aux communautés affectées. Dans ce contexte, la décision de la société de délocaliser environ un millier d’habitants afin d’étendre ses opérations dans une nouvelle zone – appelée « Area One » – a été très controversée.

En tant que Directeur Exécutif de l’ONG « Advocates for Community Alternatives », Lien De Brouckere de Communities First m’a demandé de participer à cette mission d’enquête, afin de fournir un appui dans le domaine des litiges stratégiques d’intérêt public à deux ONG guinéennes: le Centre de Commerce International pour le Développement (CECIDE) et Mêmes Droits pour Tous (MDT). Tout comme ils l’ont affirmé publiquement fin août, ces deux structures ont pour objectif dans ce cadre de faire en sorte que la SAG et le gouvernement guinéen respectent les droits légaux des communautés pendant que la société étend son empreinte opérationnelle et déplace les habitants d’Area One. Notre équipe d’enquête comprenait également des journalistes et des écologistes guinéens, et nous avons été bien soutenu par un groupe de professionnels locaux courageux face à la pression énorme des entreprises et du gouvernement. Alors que nous n’avons pas encore compilé et analysé de près les résultats du sondage d’environ 100 propriétaires résidents interrogé par notre équipe, je peux dire que nos résultats anecdotiques sont certainement sources de préoccupation.

Tout d’abord, la SAG et le militaire guinéen ont collaboré pour réaliser un recensement des actifs des ménages d’Area One tout de suite après la répression violente par les militaires d’une manifestation contre le recensement-même. L’inconduite militaire et la violence (y compris par les bérets rouges – qui ont été impliqués dans les violations flagrantes des droits humains lors du massacre du 28 septembre) étaient particulièrement élevés dans les jours précédant immédiatement le recensement. Cela comprend les arrestations, les menaces de tirer sur les personnes, mettre le feu aux cases, détruire les maisons, lancer le gaz lacrymogène à l’intérieur des maisons, le pillage largement répandu, etc. Il va sans dire que cela avait pour effet d’intimider les populations et leur a fait consentir un recensement que les habitants estiment être incomplet et inadéquat. Tout comme l’un des sages nous a dit : «  Le fusil a fait que nous avons céder notre terre. » Ces évènements soulèvent un certain nombre de préoccupations, y compris le non-respect d’une exigence découlant des Principes Volontaires concernant la Sécurité et les Droits Humains d’empêcher la participation des forces de sécurité publique avec des antécédents des violations des droits humains (tels que les bérets rouges) aux services de sécurité sur les sites.

Deuxièmement, presque personne parmi ceux que nous avons interrogé dans la zone « Area One » avait entendu parler – sans parler de comprendre le but ou contenu même – du Plan d’Action de Réinstallation et de Compensation (PARC) de la SAG, surtout son matrice d’indemnisation qui détermine les valeurs auxquelles la SAG compensera différents types d’actifs. Ce document public doit être élaboré avec la pleine participation des communautés affectées, selon les normes internationales en matière de réinstallation qu’AngloGold Ashanti prétend suivre. (En fait, selon le texte du PARC, les communautés affectées ont été exclues des consultations pour son élaboration.) De plus, la plupart des femmes interrogées se trouvait complètement dans le noir concernant la procédure de réinstallation et les modalités d’indemnisation qui ont été offerts à leurs familles, en dépit d’une exigence que des précautions particulières doivent être prises pour assurer que les groupes vulnérables et exclus des populations soient informés et consultés lors de la réinstallation.

Enfin, alors que notre analyse montrera certainement davantage des sources d’inquiétude, je vais me contenter de finir ici en notant que la SAG a tenté à plusieurs reprises d’exercer une pression sur les membres de la communauté pour quitter leur logement temporaire (leurs maisons étant déjà détruites depuis juin) et se déplacer vers le site de réinstallation, alors que la construction n’est pas encore terminé, ils n’ont aucune disposition pour les cuisines, suffisamment d’eau, d’électricité ou de contrôle des inondations – une contradiction au PARC de la SAG. Une telle tentative a été faite la veille de l’arrivé de notre mission d’enquête ; une tentative apparente de faire en sorte que notre groupe de missionnaires n’arriverait que pour découvrir que le processus a été terminé et qu’il n’y avait plus de faits à rechercher.

Nous avons demandé à la SAG et AngloGold Ashanti de répondre à un certain nombre de ces questions et nous allons les confronter avec les résultats complets de l’enquête une fois qu’ils ont été traités. Avec de la chance, cette intervention peut aider à soutenir la non-violence à Kintinian, et de garantir que les habitants d’Area One reçoivent le bénéfice de tous les droits et protections des lois et des normes internationales qu’AngloGold Ashanti professe à respecter.

The post “The gun made us cede our lands” – Abusive resettlement for a gold mine expansion in Upper Guinea first appeared on Communities First.

In this context, it’s a small glimmer of hope that a resettlement guide for affected communities that I contributed to – along with others including International Rivers and the University of Washington School of Law’s Sustainable International Development Program – was recently published by International Rivers. This guide is just one of the many steps that local civil society organizations in Bas-Congo province are taking to prepare and equip the 10,000 people who will be affected by this project to know and assert their rights in the face of an increasingly worrying situation where politics may once again trump respect for the law.

“African Dams, Rivers and Rights: A Guide for Communities to be Impacted by the Inga 3 Dam” published by International Rivers is available for download in English and French.

The post Collaboration with International Rivers on resettlement guide for Inga 3 dam in DRC first appeared on Communities First.