Discussion: Mining Local Procurement – A Necessary Lever to Overcome the Resource Curse

Jun 10, 2019 | International Institute for Environment and Development
London, UK
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The creation of a global standard on local procurement reporting for mining companies will be discussed in the latest IIED seminar on 10 June, featuring Jeff Geipel, founder and managing director of Mining Shared Value. Most mine sites spend more money on procurement of goods and services than they do on on taxes, employees and community investment combined. Mining has massive potential benefit for economic and social development in host countries. But civil society and official development assistance (ODA) providers have focused relatively little work and resources on the issue of backward linkages from mine sites to upstream suppliers – especially relative to transparency and use of mining tax revenue. 

Noticing this gap, the Mining Shared Value (MSV) initiative of Engineers Without Borders Canada was created in 2012 to act as a non-profit organisation to push and empower the global mining sector to increase local procurement in the countries and communities that choose to host extraction. Join us on Monday, 10 June at IIED's headquarters in London to hear from Jeff Geipel, founder and managing director of MSV.

In this seminar, Geipel will show how maximising local procurement can make mining work for host countries, and discuss best practices for both governments and mining companies. He will also examine the latest developments across sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the developing world, as governments increasingly implement local content requirements on investing mining companies. He will present successful models from Canada, where mining companies have worked with indigenous communities to drastically alleviate poverty with local procurement through community development agreements, and discuss the potential for these models to work in developing countries.

Geipel will cover MSV's current work with the World Bank and the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) on local content government policy, as well as the Mining Local Procurement Reporting Mechanism. This was commissioned by GIZ to create a standardised reporting framework so all mine sites provide the same set of information to host countries on their local procurement policies, programmes and results.

The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session, refreshments and networking.

For more information, please visit https://www.iied.org/discussion-mining-local-procurement-necessary-lever-overcome-resource-curse

When: 10 June 2019

Where: London, UK

Organizers: International Institute for Environment and Development