Meaningful community engagement in the extractive industries: Stakeholder perspectives and research priorities

The term ‘meaningful’ has started to appear in international standards and guidance for stakeholder consultation and engagement that are applied to the extractive industries, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises (2011). This paper explores whether there is a shared understanding of what ‘meaningful community engagement’ means in the context of extractive industry development. It discusses the challenges faced by companies, governments and civil society organisations in ensuring that community engagement processes are meaningful in practice; some of the good practices that are now emerging; and what is required to ensure that ‘meaningful community engagement’ leads to better sustainable development outcomes.

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