For four days, participants exchanged their experiences using "Getting It Right," a dynamic tool developed by Canada-based Rights & Democracy. Designed especially for communities and their support organizations, the tool enables teams to conduct HRIAs of private investment projects, such as infrastructure projects, agro-industry, dams, extractive industries, and other initiatives.

This report summarizes key lessons learned and recommendations from participants, based on their pilot experiences in Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, the Philippines, and the United States.

The Canadian organization Rights and Democracy has developed an assessment tool that communities can use to answer these questions for themselves. The system is called the “Getting it Right” Human Rights Impact Assessment tool, and is designed so that local organizations and citizens can, with minimal training, carry out their own study of how their basic rights -- such as free speech, water, safe working conditions, shelter, and education -- are affected by the actions of governments and companies establishing mines, agricultural operations, factories, or oil and gas pipelines.

“A lot of companies will do an impact assessment on their operations, using an outside consultant, but these don’t always do much for the stakeholders in the community, or promote accountability,” says Chris Jochnick, director of Oxfam America’s private sector program. “Helping community members conduct their own human rights assessment strengthens their capacity to examine their situation, frame their issues, and engage with a company or government,” he says. “We think this will produce a more robust and balanced assessment than one done by outsiders.”

The Rights and Democracy assessment tool helps people document how their rights are supposed to be protected under national law, and the actual effects of an investment project on these rights. It helps community leaders create a team, plan out the work and specific rights to assess, carry out surveys and community consultations, validate findings, write reports, and meet with companies and governments to urge action to address the problems uncovered in the assessment.

A tested tool

Rights and Democracy commissioned five assessments to test the system starting in 2005. One of them looked at the effects of a metal refinery on women’s rights in La Oroya, Peru, concentrating on the rights to water, health, adequate housing, and working conditions. It was done by the Centro de Promoción y Estudios de la Mujer Andina. The organization concluded that lack of enforcement of environmental rules by the state was one of the main contributors to the poor public health situation in the city. The report also cites lack of commitment by the Doe Run Peru SRL company to improve the environmental performance of the plant.

“By looking at the health problems in La Oroya through a woman’s eyes, this assessment helped uncover a pattern of children’s and reproductive health issues that was clearly connected to lead poisoning,” says Gabrielle Watson, Oxfam America’s planning and learning specialist who helped develop the assessment tool with Rights and Development.

Oxfam America is helping two organizations carry out a Human Rights Impact Assessment. One is related to a proposed natural gas operation in Bolivia where the Centro de Estudios Aplicados a los Derechos Economicos, Sociales y Culturales (CEADESC) will carry out the study with local Guaraní indigenous communities that were denied their right to be consulted about the gas exploration activities in their territory. The other case concerns tobacco pickers in the United States, and will be carried out by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). FLOC will look at efforts by migrant and undocumented farmworkers to improve working conditions on tobacco farms.

Watson says the human rights assessments will help people take control of the type of development carried out in their name. “Local people are the experts about human rights impacts of private investment projects in their communities. This tool puts them in the driver’s seat in the search for safer, more equitable outcomes that are good for everyone.”

“Too often, oil, gas, and mining projects don’t benefit people in countries that are rich in natural resources, but whose population is extremely poor. These extractive projects should not add to poverty and powerlessness – natural resources can and should help communities overcome these challenges,” says Raymond C. Offenheiser, President of Oxfam America. “In order for this to happen, however, communities need to know how mining and energy projects will impact their lives and lands and how revenues from these projects will be used.”

Oxfam calls on international oil, gas, and mining companies to show their respect for:

• A community’s right to know by providing complete and timely information about how their work affects communities – environmentally, socially, and economically—and how much extractive industries are paying governments for natural resources;
• A community’s right to decide by requiring extractives companies to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of communities affected by oil, gas, and mining operations. For indigenous peoples in particular, FPIC is a critical means of protecting sacred lands and cultural identity.

“Empowered with this information, communities are better able to share in the benefits of extractives projects. Revenues can go to real community needs like education, health care, and jobs, and communities can judge if these projects are a benefit or a burden,” said Offenheiser. “More often, contracts and revenues are kept secret leading to an environment that fosters embezzlement and corruption, which has contributed to the failure of extractive projects to help alleviate poverty.”

Oxfam supports legislation to reform revenue transparency rules for companies working in developing countries. Last fall, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) convened a hearing on the transparency of company payments to host governments. During the hearing, Rep. Frank opened the door for legislative action that could be a powerful step to remedy the problem. A mandatory approach in the US would be an important complement to voluntary initiatives currently in place in only a few countries.

“Many extractive industries projects promise wealth and new job opportunities,” says Mamadou Biteye, Oxfam America’s Regional Director in West Africa. “Unfortunately, many projects, like gold mining in West Africa, have failed to deliver. These industries create few jobs for locals, and communities rarely see the benefit. Communities need to be empowered with information to have more control over the management of the natural resources necessary to sustain their livelihoods.” In 2005, gold accounted for more than 50 percent of Mali’s total exports of $297 million, but information about mining revenues is inaccessible for the vast majority of citizens. And despite Mali’s gold wealth, it remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world.