ELLA Policy Brief: Managing Conflict Through Consultation: Latin America’s Experience

ELLA is the Evidence and Lessons from Latin America programme

Abstract

Experience from Latin America shows how community consultation can be an important strategy used to manage conflict in Extractive Industries activities. This Brief characterizes and analyses the different types of local consultation seen in the region, focusing on the diverse actors that lead the processes and providing illustrative examples of each. It also describes the main factors that made consultations more widespread in the region and that have improved their effectiveness. Finally, the Brief draws out lessons that could be useful for other regions aiming to establish or enhance their own community consultation processes.

Key Lessons:

Clear consultation rules and transparency in the process are vital per-requisites if extractive industry consultations are to be effective.

Consultation processes need to be all-inclusive and participatory for extractive projects to acquire social license and lead to legitimate results.

State monitoring and public scrutiny help to legitimize community consultations in the eyes of local, national and international parties.

Citation

Damonte, G. ELLA Policy Brief: Managing Conflict Through Consultation: Latin America’s Experience. ELLA, Practical Action Consulting, Lima, Peru (2012) 6 pp.

Published 1 January 2012