Negotiation Support Portal for Host Governments

Global Witness has analysed and made public two “production sharing agreements” signed by the Ugandan Government and international oil companies in February 2012. They determine what share of oil revenues the Government of Uganda will get and almost every aspect of its relationship with the oil companies. This is the first time this information has been made public.

Their analysis shows that the Ugandan Government has succeeded in negotiating a better financial deal in these contracts compared with older contracts – for which it should be congratulated. But there are some significant weaknesses that still need to be addressed. The contracts lack some important human rights and environmental safeguards. This is of particular concern given the unique habitats of the oil region in Uganda which sits on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Nile River.

To see how Uganda’s oil money will be shared and evaluate the new contracts against the old contracts see the Revenue Infographic. You can also download Global Witness' open source Economic Model, the first of its kind, which can be updated when new information becomes available or adapted for other countries’ contracts. A guide is also available here.

The governments of resource rich countries have a responsibility to be well prepared and knowledgeable in contract negotiations for natural resource extraction and long-term 
land leases – not just for the sake of securing a balanced financial deal, but to promote high standards in labour and human rights, environmental protection, health, safety, transparency and fiscal management.

This handbook provides fifty pieces of advice to ensure good governance, capacity building and sustainable development for resource rich countries.

The World Bank Group recommends a systematic structure for proactively disclosing information through this Framework for Disclosure in Public-Private Partnership Projects. The Framework is embedded in the findings of a global review of PPP disclosure frameworks and practices in identified jurisdictions in transacted PPP contracts.

There is a dearth of literature and guidance on policy and practice in PPP disclosure and a wide gap in the understanding of the mechanics of disclosure by practitioners within governments and the private sector. The Framework seeks to fill this gap along with its companion volumes on Jurisdictional Studies and Good Practice Cases. Apart from its potential usefulness to practitioners in the public and private sectors, the Framework is also intended for WBG and other MDB operational teams in PPP related projects who would have a tremendous opportunity not only to educate stakeholders on the technicalities associated with disclosure but to also take on an advocacy role to promote better disclosure practices. With this broader approach in mind, professionals in the above categories from different social and infrastructure sectors have been consulted widely during the preparation of the Framework as well as the two companion volumes. 

This guide has been written for all those working in the land sector, in natural resource management and in urban and rural development. It aims to broaden the understanding of the complexity of causes that lead to land conflicts in order to provide for better-targeted ways of addressing such conflicts. It also provides a number of tools with which to analyse land conflicts. 

This guide provides information, guidance and tools to support decision-making, planning and implementation of mining local procurement in West Africa, in particular at a country level. It can be used by individual role players as well as form the basis of consultative processes. The guide can also support regional harmonization relating to mining local procurement.

The guide addresses questions that are commonly asked by governments, companies, and citizens in the region. How do we define and measure local procurement? Do we create a specific policy or legislation to encourage mining companies to buy more locally? If so, what do these look like, and what has led to successful outcomes in other countries? Do we pick winner productive sectors? How do we best support suppliers to develop the right capacities and standards to meet mine requirements? What institutional framework and which actors need to be involved to deliver? Rather than laying the main responsibility for increasing domestic sourcing on the mining sector, the guide aims at promoting a multi-stakeholder approach, in which all actors have clear roles and responsibilities. This guide has been organised into eight modules that each address a set of related questions that have been consistently raised by role players.

This document takes a more detailed look at the differences and similarities between different types of oil contracts that the governments of resource rich countries can make with international and national oil companies.

Revenues from natural resources often pose unique challenges for tax administration. This Handbook is one of the first of its kind to focus attention on effectively administering revenues from extractive industries. It provides policymakers and officials in developing and emerging market economies with practical guidelines to establish a robust legal framework, organization, and procedures for administering revenue from these industries. It discusses transparency and how to promote it in the face of increasing demands for clarity and accountability in the administration of public revenues from extractive industries, and discusses how developing countries can strengthen their managerial and technical capacity to administer these revenues.

AMLA is a free online one-stop resource for Africa's mining legal framework (mining codes, regulations and related legislation) with interactive features to provide comparative data. The AMLA guiding template is an annotated document that outlines a menu of legislative solutions to assist countries in the preparation or revision of their mining laws.

International investment law, based primarily on international investment treaties, plays an important role in the governance of investment in agriculture, forestry, and fishing. The obligations established by these treaties, and enforced by means of investor–state arbitration, can present challenges for policy-makers and others seeking to ensure that investments are sustainable, including by affecting the ways in which the costs and benefits of investments are distributed among different actors.

CCSI partnered with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) to produce a briefing note on agricultural investments under international investment law. The briefing note provides an overview of the following issues:

• Who and what do international investment treaties protect, and how are they enforced?
• Why does international investment law matter for the governance of sustainable, responsible investment in agriculture?
• How can investment treaties and investor-state arbitration impact laws, policies, and other actions or measures taken by states concerning investment in agriculture?
• What impact does international investment law have on local perspectives, responsible governance of tenure, and responsible business conduct?
• And how can policy-makers address challenges posed by investment treaties and investor-state arbitration?

A comprehensive guide on agricultural investments. The guide:

• Provides information on how to develop sustainable agricultural policies and build institutional capacity;
• Discusses different aspects of investments such as technology, information services, fisheries, agribusiness and market development, rural finance, water, vulnerability and disaster management; and
• Offers case studies as a way of comparing different approaches to agricultural challenges and can serve as source for enhancing agricultural knowledge in the host country.

Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish

A set of model oil & gas contracts, including farmout agreements, joint operating agreements, gas sales agreements, gas transportation agreements, and LNG master agreements, that are available for purchase. Arabic, French, Portuguese, and Spanish translations of joint operating agreements (JOAs) and confidentiality agreements are also available.

A database of agreements between indigenous peoples and others in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The database offers a range of features including:

• Background information on each agreement;
• Links to related agreements, organizations, signatories and events;
• A glossary of relevant terminology; and
• Direct access to published and online resources.

This publication is an earlier version of the book above on "How to Engage with the Private Sector in Public-Private Partnerships in Emerging Markets". This book was aimed at African public sector officials while the updated version focuses beyond Africa with a wide range of case studies from several regions and sectors to show a more global perspective and experiences. 

The publication is also available in French.  

Handbook on how to manage and maintain biodiversity standards in mining operations. This handbook outlines the key principles and procedures now recognized as leading practice
for assessing biodiversity values, namely:

• identifying any primary, secondary or cumulative impacts on biodiversity values
• minimizing and managing these impacts
• restoring conservation values
• managing conservation values on a sustainable basis.

The BoKIR summarizes some of the best thinking on infrastructure policy.

This site provides links to more than 500 references, an extensive glossary and self-testing features to facilitate learning. The glossary is available in several languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai. The references include publications and decisions by regulatory agencies and other governmental bodies; policy advisories by think tanks, consultants, donor agencies, and others; and research by academics, consultants, and other experts.

The BP energy charting tool allows you to interrogate data, create charts and download reports from the Statistical Review of World Energy. The BP World Energy App - using the same data from the Statistical Review of World Energy - allows users to download the interactive data to their devices.

Governments are increasingly requiring mining companies to deliver social and economic benefits to local communities when undertaking mining projects. These requirements are encapsulated in different ways in countries’ regulatory frameworks, from a loosely expressed obligation to provide benefits to local communities, through community development plans, to community development funds and community development agreements (CDA). In some cases, the company delivers benefits voluntarily (i.e., in the absence of legal requirements) through agreements with local communities or other initiatives.

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) is collecting and reviewing these community development requirements globally, as found in countries’ legislation, regulations and policies. Voluntary initiatives undertaken by companies are also being considered. This tool maps out those requirements globally, and contains a collection of available CDAs.

This short paper is a call for caution when it comes to the decision to extract critical minerals and provides some insights into the decision models needed to factor in the uncertainty generated by the speed of tech developments.

The green energy transition will be exceedingly mineral intensive. Manufacturing solar panels, wind turbine and batteries to power cleaner energies is set to significantly increase the demand for co-called “critical” minerals. Such a forecast prompts high expectations in mineral-rich countries and suggests promising opportunities for developing countries.

However, the projects to increase the primary extraction of critical minerals rest on bullish forecasts and uncertain terrain due to a number of factors explored in the paper that threaten to leave these investments obsolete and economically stranded.

Governments, international actors, and mining advocates seeking to optimize the value of green energy mineral reserve should heed caution when pursuing and promoting the mining of critical minerals. We provide specific recommendations in the paper.

A Community Development Agreement or CDA can be a vital mechanism for ensuring that local communities benefit from large-scale investment projects. CDAs set out how the benefits of an investment project will be shared with local communities. In some countries CDAs are required by domestic legislation; in others, they are entered into voluntarily. The most effective CDAs are also adapted to the local context, meaning that no single model agreement or process will be appropriate in every situation. Nonetheless, leading practices are emerging which can be required by governments or voluntarily adopted by companies and communities. In this briefing note Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) reviews existing research, as well as available agreements from the extractive sector in Australia, Canada, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Ghana and Greenland, to highlight these leading practices. 

The Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) framework aims to provide guidance to policy makers on how to approach the question of shared use of mining-related infrastructure (rails, ports, power, water, and ICT), highlighting the operational models that are necessary for implementation, the key-success factors, the enabling conditions and how to ultimately better coordinate major investments in physical infrastructure by privately-owned natural resource concessionaires with national infrastructure development plans.

The framework also equips policy makers with a set of questions that should help conduct the negotiations on shared use with companies. The goal of the framework is to include shared infrastructure use as part of the planning and negotiation stages of extractive industry investments.

With the support of IBIS, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) has developed a gold benchmarking model that allows users to compare 10 fiscal regimes of gold producing jursdictions and the possibility to add the fiscal terms of an additional mining contract.

The use of the model has been piloted with the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) in Ghana and LATINDADD in Peru. Given that the benchmarking exercise needs to be done among peer group countries, which are those with a similar geology, infrastructure and political risk, the model includes the fiscal terms of countries chosen by ACEP and LATINDADD. 

Several sensitivity tests are provided, which allow the user to understand how the project economics and government returns change with varying assumptions, such as changes in the prices or changes in costs. CCSI has not locked any cells in the model to ensure that it is highly adaptable depending on the needs/requirement of the user.

This Guide was prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI). It was developed to assist non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on OpenLandContracts.org. Agricultural investment contracts can be complex, and some provisions may be difficult to understand. The Guide provides explanations for a range of common provisions, and includes a Glossary of legal and technical terms.

While there has been a strong tendency in resource-rich countries to push for more stringent local content regulations, the mining sector is looking to move towards increased automation. Such technological advances have the potential to increase health and safety standards as well as productivity of mine sites. However, this disruptive innovation is also likely to reduce in-pit mining workforce, employ a workforce with different skill sets, and require more advanced procurement standards. In this study, CCSI, IISD and Engineers Without Borders researched the technological innovations that are being developed, assessing when these technologies could be rolled out, and quantifying the potential impacts automation may have on local employment and procurement. The objective was to better understand how governments can adapt local content, industrial policies and their vision of the shared value paradigm in order to prepare for and embrace technological advances in the mining sector.

Having a fiscal model is key to enable countries to better understand the gas value chain and how to structure complex and capital intensive Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects for the benefit of the country.

Thomas Mitro of the University of Houston and Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) have built the first open fiscal LNG modelthat allows users to test different LNG commercial structures, compare domestic gas use options and assess the impact of various fiscal tools along the gas value chain. A manual has been developed to explain some basic concepts around the LNG value chain and to help using this tool.

Resource-rich countries are increasingly inserting requirements for local content (“local content provisions”) into their legal framework, through legislation, regulations, contracts and bidding practices. If successful, a policy to increase local content can lead to job creation, boost the domestic private sector, facilitate technology transfer and build a competitive local workforce. However, local content goals are often unfulfilled and the opportunities are not captured.

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) has conducted a survey of the local content frameworks of a number of countries, identifying the key legislation, regulations, contracts and non-binding policies and frameworks dealing with local content issues in the mining and petroleum sectors. A profile was created for each country, summarizing the provisions in the legal instruments dealing with local content and highlighting examples of high impact clauses. The profiles examine provisions dealing with local employment, training, procurement, technology transfer, local content plans as well as local ownership, depending on the country’s approach to and definition of local content. In addition, the profiles look at implementation, monitoring and enforcement provisions, as well as the government’s role in expanding local involvement. CCSI also surveyed the relevant WTO agreements and investment treaties in each country profiled to identify the provisions that may prevent, counsel against, and/or shield local content standards.

The profiles are intended as a tool for policy makers, researchers and citizens seeking to understand and compare how local content is dealt with in their own and other countries, and to provide some examples of language that might be adopted in a framework to achieve local content goals. Hyperlinks are provided to the source legislation, regulations, policies and contracts where available.

As local content policies are so context specific, CCSI welcomes comments and corrections on these profiles from practitioners in the reviewed countries, including with respect to any omissions.

This CCSI briefing provides guidance for governments to incorporate Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) into their Investment Approval Processes (IPAs).

IPAs are cititcal in setting the agenda of a governments investment environment, however too often these processes fail to incorporate Indigenous and other affected communities in the decision making process, increasing the risk of under-performing and conflict-ridden investments. Obtaining and maintaining FPIC throughout IPAs can help governments to fulfill their legal obligations, mitigate financial and political risk, and, ultimately, attract more sustainable land-based investments.

This breifing provides concrete guidance and draws on case studies from Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone; and explains how governments can incorporate FPIC and meaningful consultation into each stage of the investment, namely:

- Creating an enabling environment and attracting the right investors
- Registration of intent and screening
- Community consultations and impact assessments
- Permits, contract negotiation, and approval
- Throughout the life of the project

The intended audience for this briefing is host government entities who promote, screen, approve, and monitor land-based investments, including agricultural, forestry, or renewable energy projects. It may be relevant for investment promotion agencies, ministries of land, agriculture, forestry, energy, renewable energy, finance, economy, and/or rural development, environmental protection agencies, and local government entities, among others.

This report explores the role that an impact investment fund may have in the negotiation of mining-related community agreements. Key insights - mining and social conflict, sustainable development and community agreements are discussed, with specific focus on the Philippines, where the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous communities to mining is legally required, as are community agreements with companies. 

SDSG is establishing a public library of materials related to Community Development Agreements (CDA) between resource companies and local communities. Some of these may also involve government at the national or local levels. The goal of the library project is to allow sharing of experience and actual models from different countries and regions.

This library includes materials about Community Development Agreements, which are also called by different names, such as IBAs, or “Impact Benefit Agreements.”Some of the materials also include discussions of how CDAs are negotiated, or which discuss overcoming the difference in capacity of the various parties to negotiation.

In addition, the library includes copies of actual agreements that have been negotiated in different communities, in any language.

This report provides a draft model community development agreement regulations suitable for adoption into legislation or which can be modified for use as guidelines.

This toolkit aims to:

• foster constructive working relationships and alliances among communities, companies and governments
• build capacity within governments, companies and communities to address sustainable development issues at the local level
• promote the value-adding potential of mine development and operation in support of local and regional social and economic sustainable development efforts
• improve opportunities for the sustainable development of communities around mining and metals operations and regions during all phases of the mining and metals cycle

This is a “How To” guide for rural communities considering whether to share their land and natural resources with investors. The guide explains how a community can proactively prepare themselves before an investor approaches them, what questions community members should ask both themselves and investors before going into contract negotiations, and how to ensure that they receive truly equitable benefits in return for sharing their land and resources. The guide also includes actions that communities can take if, having already signed an agreement in the past, they feel as though they are being treated unfairly or want to enforce elements of the contractual agreement.

Developers extracted data from GapMinder and EITI to create graphical tools for comparing extractive revenue with poverty indicators. 

The Social Aspects of Mine Closure Consortium, an initiative of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) at The University of Queensland has launched an online library dedicated to the social aspects of mine closure. 

The eLibrary provides access to the latest literature as it becomes available and has more than 220 resources about the social aspects of mine closure and is searchable using multiple parameters.

Building on the momentum created by the Platform for Collaboration on Tax’s draft paper regarding taxing indirect transfers of source country assets, CCSI and the International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) developed a practical guide for developing country governments on the taxation of indirect transfers of extractive industries’ assets.  Indirect transfers occur when—instead of selling the asset—the shares of the domestic subsidiary, the shares of the foreign company with a branch in the country, or the shares of the holding company are sold.  In these cases, the right to capital gain attributable to the underlying situation in the host country is more likely to escape taxation by the host country on the transfer, unless domestic law has special provisions to capture the gains made through such an indirect transfer.  

This document provides practical guidance to address the taxation of indirect transfers of assets of extractive industries that are located in developing countries. It focuses on issues that developing country governments may wish to consider if they adopt a policy to tax such transfers. In doing so, it examines the language of the legislative and regulatory provisions employed by countries that have adopted such a policy to tax and comments on the pros and cons of these provisions. 

This book brings to light a range of powerful case studies of how companies, often with communities, have built grievance mechanisms that have both enjoyed a good measure of success and offered important lessons. The cases convey varying perspectives on the mechanisms they review, including the crucial perspectives of affected communities themselves. Together, they offer valuable insights into the considerable challenges, and the equally considerable benefits, of effective company-community grievance mechanisms.

This note provides an outline of a proposed PPP policy, which covers the following topics:

• Definition and scope;
• Objectives of the PPP program;
• Principles of PPP agreements;
• Risk allocation in PPP projects; 
• Establishment of a PPP unit;
• PPP procedures; and
• Auditing the PPP program. 

The Energy Charter Conference welcomed the work of the Energy Charter Secretariat, with the valuable assistance of the Legal Advisory Task Force in preparing and updating Model Agreements as a set of non-legally-binding guidelines for the negotiation of cross-border projects.

These have been developed with a view to providing interested parties to energy-related projects with a neutral and non-prescriptive starting point for negotiations, and thus, facilitating project-specific talks. This work was done with the help of a professional consultant and with the valuable assistance of the voluntary Legal Advisory Task Force. The Model Agreements were prepared based on best international practices and with the aim of reflecting as much as possible the interests of the different parties concerned.

This work began with the preparation of Model Agreements for Cross-Border Pipelines (Pipeline Model Agreements, or PMAs), which were released in 2004 following the approval of the Energy Charter Conference. Subsequently, the PMAs were revised and updated; this second edition was published in 2008.

The Secretariat then developed Model Agreements for Cross-Border Electricity Projects (Electricity Model Agreements, or EMAs) and, as a supplement to EMAs, the Market and System Inter-Operability Agreement Guidelines for Cross-Border Electricity Projects (Guidelines to Electricity Model Agreements, or GEMA).

Currently, the Secretariat is working on an Investment Model Agreements (IMAs).

A report that aims at helping government and civil society actors understand the challenges and good practices associated with effective oversight and enforcement in the mining industry.

To monitor, mining obligations must first be identified, but they are not always obvious.

A website that enables users to easily access EIA laws and regulations, to view summaries of the EIA system for selected countries, and to make comparisons among all of the laws included in the database.

The Equitable Origin System includes a rigorous, comprehensive standard for oil and gas exploration and production, as well as a certificate trading system and ecolabel program that enables downstream customers to support better production practices.

The EO100™ Standard creates metrics and performance targets that address the social and environmental impacts of oil and gas exploration and production. The six principles of the EO100™ Standard build upon the recommendations of the oil and gas industry, leading international NGOs focused on oil and gas production and indigenous communities affected by oil and gas exploration and production. The standard also incorporates the results of analyses of and dialogues with a variety of social and environmental initiatives, standards, conventions and declarations. A full list of those references is included in the EO100™ Standard

By achieving consensus from the oil and gas industry, NGOs, indigenous communities and governmental agencies, Equitable Origin provides a framework for responsible oil and gas exploration and production that encourages and incentivizes social and environmental excellence. Coupled with the market mechanism, the Equitable Origin certification system makes improved practices in the oil and gas industry financially viable.

The EO100™ Standard does not specify required technologies to reduce environmental and social impact, but rather provides a rating system with which such impact is evaluated. The standard defines a minimum level of performance below which certification to the EO100™ Standard will not be awarded. Above the minimum level of performance, a given production operation can earn extra qualifying points.

The EPEC PPP Guide has been designed as tool gathering “good practice” sources of information. It seeks to identify the “best of breed” guidance available from PPP guidelines worldwide and from selected professional publications. It is designed to assist public officials responsible for preparing, launching and implementing PPP projects and to facilitate their understanding of the key issues and steps involved in the delivery of PPP arrangements.

The EPEC PPP Guide can be used in a number of ways. For example:

• As a broad guide to procurement and implementation issues in PPPs;
• As an introduction to the information public procuring authorities should request from their advisers; and

As a starting point to learn more about specific aspects of PPP design.

This guidance note is produced by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (ERBD) and outlines the internal requirements, specifications, and principles behind the ERBD's grievance management process. This resource is a helpful example from a large development bank on its grievance mechanisms. 

A worksheet created by the World Bank for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) posing important questions for evaluating a grievance redress mechanism. 

The EITI Standard is an authoritative source on how countries can implement the EITI.
Countries implement the EITI Standard to ensure full disclosure of taxes and other payments made by oil, gas and mining companies to governments. These payments are disclosed in an annual EITI Report, which allows citizens to see for themselves how much their government is receiving from their country’s natural resources. To see all EITI Reports, go to data.eiti.org.

Guidelines that provide an overview of how to conduct environmental impact assessments of agriculture and sector-related investments.

The FAO Governance of Tenure Technical Guides are part of FAO’s initiative to help develop capacities to improve tenure governance and thereby assist countries in applying the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. The FAO Governance of Tenure Technical Guides are prepared by technical specialists and can be used by a range of actors. They translate principles of the Guidelines into practical mechanisms, processes and actions, give examples of good practice – what has worked, where, why and how, and provide useful tools for activities such as the design of policy and reform processes, for the design of investment projects and for guiding interventions.

FAOLEX is a comprehensive and up-to-date legislative and policy database, one of the world's largest online repositories of national laws, regulations and policies on food, agriculture and natural resources management. Users of FAOLEX have direct access to the abstracts and indexing information about each text, as well as to the full text of the legislation and policies contained in the database.

This manual has been prepared for the Forest Carbon Partnership based on good practices identified in World Bank projects and beyond. It intends to serve as a starting point for project teams who need to work with clients to establish grievance redress mechanisms on the ground. It describes the procedures that will be followed by (client / contractor) to address complaints or concerns submitted by people who may be benefitted or impacted by (name of the project). It intends to provide clarity and predictability on how complaints will be received, assessed, sorted, and resolved, and monitored. Specific activities are described for each of these steps. 

FERDI provides the first legal and tax database which lists, since the 1980s, the tax regime applicable to industrial gold mines in 22 African producing countries and a tool for simulating the sharing of mining rent between State and investors. The proposed tools make it possible to: 1) understand the particularities of mining taxation in comparison with the general regime, 2) know the evolution of mining taxation, 3) compare mining taxation between African countries, 4) compare mining taxation between projects from the same country, 5) assess the sharing of the mining rent between the State and investors.

This model calculates a probable range for the NPV of a portfolio of sustainability investments, including both the direct value creation and the indirect value protection of these investments.

People in resource-rich countries also want to know whether companies are paying the correct amount of tax, and whether these payments represent a fair share of the natural resource wealth. This Handbook is designed to help you analyze payment data and identify potential losses in government revenue. Where potential losses (or “red flags”) are identified, it is important to recognize that this is just the start of the process. Further inquiry will be needed. Care should be taken to ensure that convincing evidence supports any claims of revenue loss. This Handbook is written in the hope that Payments to Governments data will be carefully analyzed and that your findings will be both reliable and influential. 

Proper evaluation of fiscal regimes for extractive industries (EI) requires economic and financial analysis at the project level. This website introduces key concepts and methodology used by the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) in its fiscal analysis of resource industries (FARI) framework. FARI is primarily used in advisory work by FAD on fiscal regime design. In parallel to that, FARI has also been used for revenue forecasting, to analyze revenue management issues (including quantification of fiscal rules), and to better integrate the EI sector in the country macroeconomic frameworks. Looking forward, the model presents a useful tool for revenue administration practitioners, allowing them to compare actual, realized revenues with model results in tax gap analysis.

This paper examines the key elements of the legal and fiscal frameworks utilized in the petroleum sector and aims to outline desirable features that should be considered in the design of fiscal policy with the objective of optimizing the host government’s benefits, taking into account the effect that this would have on the private sector’s investment.

In order to help Ghanaian MPs and the general public understand the potential impact of volatile petroleum prices on the implementation of the 2015 budget, NRGI have built an oil revenue forecasting model. The tool uses only publicly available data and information. It is provided in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx), and released under an open license so that it can be used by anyone. It can also be edited, refined, and updated as events in Ghana and the world evolve.

This modeling was only made possible due to the advanced state of oil sector disclosures in Ghana: contracts for the most important producing oil field (the Jubilee oil field) are published, the country is EITI compliant, national laws require transparency and regular reporting, and international oil companies such as Tullow and Kosmos disclose further key information.

The handbook is about how to use law to make foreign investment work for sustainable development. It aims to provide a rigorous yet accessible analysis of the law regulating foreign investment in low and middle-income countries, what this law is, how it works, and how to use it most effectively. Topics covered include laws promoting investment flows, achieving a fair economic deal (corporate structure; taxation regime), social and environmental considerations, and transparency, anti-corruption, other investment issues. The handbook aims to support government officials in low and middle-income countries in their management of foreign investment for sustainable development, and to support civil society efforts to influence decisions and hold government and investors to account.

The framework aims to provide guidance to policy makers on how to approach the question of shared use of mining-related infrastructure (rails, ports, power, water, and ICT), highlighting the operational models that are necessary for implementation, the key-success factors, the enabling conditions and how to ultimately better coordinate major investments in physical infrastructure by privately-owned natural resource concessionaires with national infrastructure development plans.
The framework also equips policy makers with a set of questions that should help conduct the negotiations on shared use with companies. The goal of the framework is to include shared infrastructure use as part of the planning and negotiation stages of extractive industry investments.

FAO and partner organizations jointly developed a common approach to incorporate FPIC into the work of each respective organization. The first outcome of this alliance is this FPIC Manual, which will enable field practitioners to incorporate FPIC into project and programmes’ design and implementation, ensuring that indigenous peoples’ rights are duly respected. This manual deeply rooted in a human rights based approach, is designed to assist development organizations to respect the right to FPIC when developing and implementing projects affecting Indigenous Peoples. The manual contains a six-step procedure to facilitate the FPIC process while showing its benefits, as well as providing the regulatory framework to be used when mainstreaming Indigenous Peoples’ rights within organizations’ policies and standards.

The Freight Transport toolkit is a user-friendly website that provides information and examples on how to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of freight transport for trade and development. The toolkit provides an overview of key issues and developments in the field of freight transport and freight transport policy, with examples of policy measures. All information and tools provided are supported by evidence from 28 real life case studies and numerous case examples.

The toolkit additionally provides relevant transport mode-specific information for rural transport, urban transport, road, rail, ports and air transport. The content is presented in a modular approach that quickly orientates users to key information that will help them make better informed decisions.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are now being used in many countries to develop infrastructure projects. Typically, PPP transactions are based on a network of complex legal agreements – however, at the center of each transaction there is normally a PPP Contract, in the form of a concession agreement or similar document, between a government or other public entity (the Contracting Authority) and a private company or a consortium of companies (the Private Partner). 

Given the variety of PPP transactions globally, the different legal systems which exist in various countries, and the need to have ‘tailor-made' provisions to deal with the individual characteristics of specific projects, it follows that the development of comprehensive PPP agreements on an international basis is likely an unrealistic goal. However, there may be merit in focusing on certain contractual provisions dealing with particular legal issues encountered in virtually every PPP Contract, such as the issues of force majeure, termination rights, dispute resolution, etc. The purpose of this Report is to present and discuss ‘recommended’ language in respect of a selection of these typically encountered provisions. 

Getting a Better Deal from the Extractive Sector demonstrates the need for more equitable terms in natural resource contracts and the pivotal role that the contract process can play in economic recovery and development. The report was prepared for the Office of the President of Liberia by Natural Resource Governance Institute staff who were closely involved with Liberia's Firestone and ArcelorMittal negotiations. The report includes forewords by Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Open Society Institute chairman George Soros.

This guide is a step-by-step process that allows assessment teams to take stock of the positive and negative human rights impacts of an investment project. Throughout the steps, information and additional references are provided including reference documents on human rights, examples of research techniques, relevant websites, and details on where to find specific information.

The guide is available in English, French, and Spanish.

An OECD review of national sustainable development strategies of OECD countries, which attempts to identify good practices with examples drawn from specific national strategies.

This chapter of the EI Sourcebook discusses the design and administration of fiscal regimes in the extractives industries sector. Topics covered include:

• Fiscal Objectives
• Fiscal Instruments
• Special Fiscal Topics and Provisions
• Fiscal Systems
• Fiscal Administration
• Summary and Recommendations

This chapter of the EI sourcebook covers issues related to sector policy, legislation, contracts, award of contracts and licenses, and regulation. Topics include:

• Policy Context
• Sector Legislation: Design
• Sector Legislation: Content
• Contracts and Licenses
• Local Content
• The Award of Contracts and Licenses
• Regulations
• Contract Negotiations and Dispute Settlement

This note seeks to determine how governments’ legal support gaps can be addressed in order to help low- and middle-income countries achieve responsible land investments. By scrutinizing “legal support gaps,” this note seeks to identify possible weak links in global and national efforts to achieve more responsible land investments, as well as opportunities to encourage better practice.

The purpose of this note is to provide an overview of some of the tax and fiscal related issues developing countries face in the negotiation and possible renegotiation of long term natural resource contracts. It will also provide some additional perspective on the negotiation and renegotiation process. This is intended to help developing country policy makers and administrators, and to provide information to other stakeholders, on both substantive and procedural approaches to agreements between such countries and the investors they seek to attract in the development of their potential oil, gas, and mineral resources. Background contained in this note will provide a broader context for options and approaches available in negotiating long term contracts.

A guide that describes the common provisions that are included in mining contracts and provides some examples of key provisions.

Provides an overview of how oil and gas agreements are structured: their common provisions, key terms in their negotiation, and the areas to cover in the negotiation process. This offers an investor-friendly introduction to how contracts in this industry are drafted.

This Guide:

• Aims to help States better implement their State duty to protect (DtP) under the UN Guiding Principles for 
Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) across investment policymaking.
• Highlights why investment policymaking should be a priority area for UNGP implementation.
• Offers a practical Guide to implementation by (i) mapping the diverse State functions, instruments and actors 
that are relevant throughout the life cycle of an investment project; (ii) presenting six key issues that are most
 relevant for implementing the UNGPs in investment policymaking; and (iii) providing ideas and examples of
 measures for State implementation.
• Is intended for government officials who are involved in all stages of investment policymaking and for those
 leading the implementation of the UNGPs; it is also intended for use by civil society, business enterprises and
 other stakeholders who can contribute to improving the ability of States to protect human rights in the context 
of investment.

This guidance document aims to address the question of how to create successful and sustainable community investments and how to measure their success. Social investment (SI) programmes are defined as the voluntary contributions companies make to the communities and broader societies where they operate, with the objective of benefiting external stakeholders, typically through the transfer of skills or resources.

The guidebook will help governments, public interest lawyers, grassroots advocates, and community members understand mining EIAs, identify flaws in mining project plans, and explore ways that mining companies can reduce the public health hazards associated with mining.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the delivery of public services have become a world-wide phenomenon and are generating great interest. PPPs combine the best of both worlds, but they also present a severe organizational and institutional challenge for the public sector. To address the challenge, the UNECE has elaborated this guidebook for policymakers, government officials and the private sector in the hope that all the parties to PPPs will benefit by examining closely the good governance principles contained in the Guidebook and ensuring their implementation.

Available in English, French, and Russian.

The guidelines aim to promote effective decisions about the structure and rules of the petroleum sector in a context of low institutional and sector capacity. They offer recommendations for emerging producers, drawn from a workshop that brought together new and established producers, as well as technical advisory groups active in these countries.

In June 2011, in an unprecedented step, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed a set of Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Guiding Principles establish an authoritative global standard on the respective roles of businesses and governments in helping ensure that companies respect human rights in their own operations and through their business relationships.
The Guiding Principles were developed by the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie of Harvard Kennedy School, over the six years of his UN mandate from 2005 to 2011. They elaborate on the three pillars of the UN "Protect, Respect and Remedy" Framework that Professor Ruggie proposed to the Human Rights Council in 2008. The three pillars of the Framework are:

The state duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business, through appropriate policies, regulation, and adjudication;
The corporate responsibility to respect human rights, that is, to act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the rights of others and address adverse impacts with which they are involved; and
The need for greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial.

Guide on how to handle and resolve issues of concern for local communities affected by mining projects. It shows the user how to design and establish a credible local mechanism to resolve disputes. It deals both with the overarching design principles (how to build trust for the dispute mechanism, how to create an organizational structure that supports the mechanism) and with the design of the mechanism itself (how to assess complaints, how to involve a third party and set up an independent forum).

Governments of mineral-rich countries formulate and use a variety of financial imposts to collect a share of the revenue generated by mining companies. Instruments include the full range of taxes, fees, and charges that generally apply to all normal commercial operations. In addition to these measures, most governments use mineral royalties along with variations to the corporate taxation measures, customs duties, and value-added taxes that apply just to mining. This sourcebook focuses on mineral royalties and on other taxation measures that are specific to mining activities, with particular emphasis on imposts of common application in most developing countries, which may create challenges in their administration. The legislative framework establishing these taxes in developing countries that are experiencing an accelerated pace of resource development is in most cases relatively modern and largely adequate, but the supporting administrative capability, procedures, and systems have tended to lag behind. This sourcebook presents a practical overview of how to analyze and improve the administrative frameworks and systems for mineral royalties and other taxes specific to mining.
This sourcebook provides a structured approach to help the ministries of finance and mines analyze and improve their effectiveness and efficiency in handling common issues and challenges; avoid duplication of effort; and overcome the organizational, structural, and resourcing difficulties generally encountered in the administration of various elements of mining regimes.
Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, and Russian

This document identifies the key areas on which governments should focus during their negotiations of oil agreements. It provides guidance regarding: who should be negotiating, over what issues, with what informational environment, and with what time horizon.

Features such as contract structure are also examined and a set of especially tricky issues are discussed, including accounting standards; the role of social projects; health and environment concerns; stabilization clauses; and contract termination provisions.

A brief and clear introduction to the main issues to be considered when drafting a petroleum contract: type of agreement to enter into, taxes to apply, stabilization clauses to include, termination conditions, and so on. It can also serve as a guide for other large-scale investment projects.

The guide discusses the provisions of a particular type of oil and gas contract, the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA). While the guide is aimed at a general civil society readership, it draws particularly on experience from Kazakhstan. Its purpose is to give an accessible account of some key characteristics of PSAs, with a focus on revenue issues, and to suggest action points for civil society organizations involved with monitoring extractive industries. Indeed, in recent years the management of extractive industry revenues has become of growing concern to public opinion in resource-rich states.

A section of the IBA Community Toolkit that addresses how communities to get organized for negotiations with investors by developing a structure for managing negotiations, gathering information materials, developing strategies, and establishing negotiation positions.

The publication provides recommendations for managing the resettlement of local communities who have been displaced or whose livelihoods have been impacted due to the presence of mining. This includes ensuring adequate compensation and development opportunities.

The document is structured around 10 modules that cover planning, stakeholder engagement, compensation, livelihood restoration and monitoring impacts among other topics.

It is targeted primarily at companies, but also contains information and guidance relevant for all stakeholders, including government representatives.

Methodology for assessing the mining environment in which a potential project will take place as well as the social and economic impacts of the project. It includes advice on how to measure impact on local communities and a mine’s life cycle, governance-related issues, and an overview of the different actors and interests involved in investment projects.

This database contains information on all the bilateral investment treaties collected by ICSID to date. The information is organized alphabetically by signatory, and may be further searched by selecting two specific States or the year of signature.

The IFC's Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability are considered to be the gold standard in achieving sustainable development.

The Mining Policy Framework (MPF) is a compendium of best practices in mining law and governance. It was developed by governments to provide a framework to guide governments to come up with a mineral regime for sustainable development. It is available in English, French, Spanish, and Russian.

The IGF Secretariat’s Guidance for Governments: Improving Legal Frameworks for Environmental and Social Impact Assessment and Management offers IGF member states a summary of international best practices in legal frameworks for ESIA and related management plans for large-scale mines. It includes examples, strategies, and tools to aid in evaluating and improving legal frameworks and environmental and social aspects of resource governance.

Over 3,000 international investment treaties (IITs) are in force, more are being negotiated. While informed debates on IITs are usually framed in legalistic terms, the signing and wording of these treaties imply important trade-offs between policy goals. The ramifications can be expensive (the record payout to investors for breach of an IIT is US$1.7 billion), far-reaching (affecting issues well beyond investment policy, including public health or environmental measures), and difficult to withdraw from (because the ability to terminate a treaty or its effects may be restricted for decades). Countries considering negotiating investment treaties need proper reflection and public debate on these policy choices. This overview briefing is the first of four promoting debate on IITs and sustainable development.

The briefing is also available in Burmese.

The IISD Guide to Negotiating Investment Contracts for Farmland and Water is a legal and policy tool for governments and communities that are involved in negotiating investment contracts with foreign investors. The guide focuses on a particular type of contract involving long-term leases of farmland. Part I, Preparing for Negotiations, is designed to assist in the preparatory phase. Part 2, Model Contract, is structured like an investment contract for the lease of farmland and proposes model provisions.

This IISD Handbook on Mining Contract Negotiations for Developing Countries fills a need for a self-contained tool to help guide developing countries through the process of negotiating investment contracts with mining companies. Unlike some guides or model contracts that seek to provide a one-size-fits-all solution, this handbook seeks to assist government officials to first identify their needs and goals, and then to prepare themselves in a manner that will enable more effective negotiating by government negotiators and those behind the scenes who assist them.

IISD's Model Agreement on Investment takes a fresh look at the formulation of international investment agreements. It differs by looking not only from the perspective of the investor, but also at the rights and obligations of the host state. IISD's Model Agreement and accompanying publications focus on achieving sustainable development while fostering international investment.

The draft is the result of an 18-month process of drafting and consultations, including a high-level experts meeting in January 2005 in The Hague and a launch event hosted by the Commonwealth Secretariat in April 2005. A parallel exercise developing a Southern Agenda also fed strongly into the process.

The IISD Model Investment Agreement is accompanied by a Negotiator’s Handbook, with article-by-article commentary that draws out the nuances and intent of the text, differentiating it from the current standard approaches and related alternatives. This should be of use to those countries now negotiating or revising investment agreements.

This particular guide is aimed at policymakers, industry, and civil society members who wish to implement the EITI standard. It details what types of regulations must be implemented to become a candidate for the EITI and to comply and remain EITI-compliant.

The document contains an overview of Indigenous Peoples and the policy and regulatory context relevant to the sector’s interaction with them, as well as a summary of some of the specific issues for oil and gas companies to consider when operating in areas with Indigenous Peoples (set around the three themes of consultation and engagement, key issues to manage, and benefits sharing). The document concludes with a summary of emerging good practice.

This guide is designed to assist developing countries to negotiate IIAs that do a better job of promoting their sustainable development. It explains how IIAs can increase foreign investment flows into developing countries and addresses how these agreements can support the efforts of host developing countries to regulate foreign investment inflows in order to ensure that they contribute to sustainable development. The guide achieves these goals by:

1. Identifying emerging best practices in existing agreements;

2. Suggesting new and innovative provisions;

3. Acting as a resource for developing country negotiators; and

4. Outlining how states can achieve coherence among their IIAs.

Interactive world map features for eight different energy sources and measures: CO2 Emission from Fuel Combustion, Coal, Electricity, Energy Ballance, Energy Indicators, Natural Gas, Oil, and Renewables. 

The handbook is an APEC-UNCTAD initiative which aims to provide practical and user-friendly information to negotiators of International Investment Agreements (IIAs) in order to assist them in the decision-making process towards concluding IIAs compatible with national policy objectives.

There are a total of 26 sections (modules), each dedicated to a specific provision or issue commonly encountered in IIAs. Each module identifies main approaches and policy options accompanied by sample treaty formulations from existing IIAs. Importantly, it also sets out main implications of each policy option in order to assist negotiators in making an informed choice.

A guide that analyzes common aspects of existing International Investment Agreements and assesses their shortfalls in fostering sustainable development in host countries, offering suggestions on how to improve contract-drafting so as to avoid negative impacts and re-negotiations in the future.

This guide discusses options to structure investment contracts in the natural resource sector in ways that maximize the investment’s contribution to sustainable development.
The guide draws on test trainings in Ghana and Central Asia and aims to provide up-to-date and comprehensive learning material for both host governments and civil society. It can be used as a background document for training sessions, but it may also be used by readers accessing the material on their own.

This joint IISD, World Bank and UNCTAD discussion paper marries two substantial bodies of research to show how investment contracts can be set up to promote sustainable development. It presents the top five positive outcomes and the five downsides from private sector investments in large-scale agricultural projects. The paper also proposes legal options to maximizing the main positive outcomes and minimizing the main downsides through better drafting of contracts between investors and governments for the lease of farmland.

This document is a tool for parliamentarians, government officials, landholders and local communities who are involved in negotiating investment contracts with foreign investors for agricultural land and water. It presents 10 key steps to follow when negotiating the contract from a sustainable development perspective. It is an overview of a more detailed and comprehensive handbook, which proposes model legal provisions for an investment contract.

A handbook that provides government lawyers with a framework to evaluate the quality of a country’s investment legislation (if it exists) and how the legislation relates to its investment policy and investment incentives. It also provides practical guidance on how to write new or reform existing investment legislation based on emerging “good practices.”

The handbook appendices contain drafting guidelines and checklists of issues that FDI laws should include and that countries can use when drafting investment legislation. It includes a chapter on monitoring and evaluation.

The IPFSD provides guidance to governments on formulating investment policies that seek to both encourage foreign direct investment and promote sustainable development. The IPFSD consists of a set of Core Principles for investment policymaking and translates them into (1) guidelines for national investment policies, and options and provisions for the design and (2) use of International Investment Agreements.

The handbook focuses on one of the steps governments commonly take in the pursuit of investment: concluding international treaties that guarantee a certain standard of treatment for foreign investors. 

The handbook aims to provide an accessible introduction to the world of international investment treaties and their implications for sustainable development. If sustainable development is, in large part, an investment challenge, then the international agreements that govern investment must be fit for that purpose. 

This manual provides practical step-by-step guidance on how to plan and implement operational-level community grievance mechanisms (CGMs) and how to design and to manage corporate CGM frameworks. It draws on the practical experiences of seven pilot projects conducted by Ipieca member companies as well as the shared learning from other Ipieca members and stakeholders. Presented in three main sections and subdivided into ‘modules’, the manual can be read in full or in parts of specific interest to users. Step-by-step overviews are provided throughout, together with practical advice for those implementing or managing CGMs. Also included is an Annex with a broad range of practical CGM tools. Overall, the Manual reflects the industry’s positive response to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), which promote the use, value and power of effective CGMs in facilitating access to remedy.

This toolbox enables oil and gas companies to create, implement and raise awareness of Community Grievance Mechanisms (CGMs). Wherever oil and gas companies do business, engaging with affected communities and responding to their concerns is essential to operating successfully whilst ensuring respect for human rights. Processes that allow concerns to be raised and remedied—also known CGMs—are an important method of achieving this aim. The Ipieca CGM toolbox is based on the operational experiences of Ipieca member companies and is relevant for both companies who have existing CGM processes and those seeking to establish a CGM. More broadly, this toolbox encourages the implementation of the Access to Remedy pillar outlined in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The purpose of this Guide is to assist oil and gas companies in implementing a due diligence process for human rights. This can be an essential part of a company’s overall risk management strategy, especially in countries where human rights issues may be more prevalent. The Guide aims to:

• clarify what constitutes a due diligence process
  for human rights;
• clarify the business case for a human rights due
  diligence process;
• support the development and/or continuous
  improvement of due diligence processes for
  human rights; and promote consistent approaches to the management of potential human rights issues and impacts. 

The Human Rights Training Tool (3rd edition) enables oil and gas companies to develop a better understanding of the corporate responsibility to respect human rights and key human rights issues relevant for the industry. It reinforces company expectations and requirements related to human rights and introduces resources to help manage potential human rights issues. This edition also includes a dedicated module on labor issues, covering freedom of association and collective bargaining, child labor, forced labor, human trafficking, and elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. Additionally, it covers key considerations when engaging with suppliers on human rights and labor commitments.

This document surveys the existing body of third party guidance on operational level grievance mechanisms. It focuses on aspects of the literature of most relevance to the oil and gas industry, including the criteria for effective grievance handling, basic procedural steps, elements of good practice and integration with existing management systems.

This Guide describes how human rights can be integrated into environmental, social and health impact assessments (ESHIAs), which the oil and gas industry routinely uses to evaluate projects and activities. It provides an introduction to human rights and their relevance to the activities of the oil and gas industry, and briefly describes why it is important for the oil and gas industry to consider the impact that its projects and activities have on human rights.

The purpose of this glossary is to provide brief explanatory commentaries on the main terms and concepts used in international investment agreements.

A knowledge platform and toolkit for addressing questions of international investment in developing country agriculture.

Before deciding to invest, companies and investors will perform background research on the uncertainties and risks associated with the proposed investment. For natural resource projects, there are risks around geology, market and price developments, construction delays, operations, regulatory changes, political disruptions, and reputational issues. Feasibility studies and due diligence assessments aim to better understand these risks, reduce uncertainty where possible and be better prepared to manage them.

CCSI has teamed up with Kroll, a leading global provider of risk solutions that regularly performs Reputational and Integrity Due Diligence (RIDD) on investors, to develop a guide on (1) how to decide when to conduct RIDD, (2) how to conduct basic checks, and (3) when and how to engage with third parties to conduct a RIDD.

The Land Matrix is a global and independent land monitoring initiative. Its goal is to facilitate an open development community of citizens, researchers, policy-makers, and technology specialists to promote transparency and accountability in decisions over land and investment.

The Legal Framework Assessment provides a summary of key areas of a host country's existing laws that will need to be reviewed when a government embarks on an infrastructure project, particularly one involving the private sector.

In addition, checklists, model bid documents, examples of legislative provisions relevant to infrastructure PPP projects, and financing mechanisms for PPP projects are provided.

Available in English, French, and Spanish.

This note is for policy-makers and tax authorities in capacity-constrained
developing countries where mining is occurring.

Its aim is to assist countries with very limited resources to combat
tax BEPS. It prioritizes simplicity and ease of administration as policy
objectives. It provides references to deeper analysis available to assist developing countries to navigate particular issues on interest deductibility wherever possible.

With support from GIZ, CCSI prepared a report titled "Linkages to the Resource Sector: The Role of Companies, Governments, and International Development Cooperation." It outlines options for how these stakeholders can increase the economic linkages to the extractive industries sector not only in terms of ‘breadth’ (number of linkages) but also in terms of ‘depth’ (local value added). Apart from providing the theoretical framework for linkage creation and an overview of existing literature on this topic, the study highlights successful case study examples. Recommendations are provided for the three types of stakeholders.

This paper offers guidance on designing and implementing local content initiatives in the oil, gas and mining sectors to ensure economic sustainability within producing regions. It aims to answer the question of how national and subnational governments, industry and civil society can maximize local benefits through partnerships among governments, companies and civil society organizations.

The guide aims to help countries achieve an investment framework that provides long-term growth and helps avoid the volatility associated with investment in natural resource industries. It provides:

A fiscal sustainability framework that accounts for the growth impact of public investment;
Offers a tool for countries to analyze the fiscal and macroeconomic implications of different savings/investment scenarios;
Proposes indicators for measuring revenue use; and
offers a toolkit for designing fiscal rules.

This report, prepared jointly by the United Nations Development Programme, the World Economic Forum, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investments and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, illustrates how mining can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of the report is to guide the mining industry to:
Map its roles, responsibilities and opportunities across the 17 Sustainable Development Goals;
Demonstrate how the mining industry can ensure that social and economic benefits of mining are widely shared and environmental impact minimized;
Map the relationship between mining industry and the SDGs by using examples of good practice in the industry and existing knowledge and resources in sustainable development.

A guide on how to tender mineral assets and mining-related infrastructure. It offers advice on how to choose the appropriate tendering process, a review of recent trends in the tendering of mineral resources and a discussion of the structure of the tender and of the PPP process.

The guide also contains a detailed case study of Afghanistan’s Aynak copper deposit to illustrate the application of an international competitive bidding procedure in the tendering of mineral resources in a developing country.

Using operations in Australia as an example, this guide provides a comparison between different fiscal regimes and offers advice on how to design the most beneficial taxing regime for host countries.

The report analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of different structures of minerals taxation regimes and concludes with a number of observations on the design and application of minerals taxation regimes.
One clear message emerging from the report is that there is significant room for agreement between companies and governments – provided that both adopt a long-term perspective. In particular, both parties have an interest in taxation regimes that are widely perceived to be legitimate.

Guidelines for assessing the viability of a project in environmentally or socially vulnerable areas that can help governments determine “no-go” areas for mining. It offers a general framework that can be used to identify risk areas globally and two case studies.

This document describes some of the main considerations and processes regarding the development and implementation of these strategies, specifically in relation to Community Development Agreements (CDAs). In the last few years the World Bank Oil, Gas and Mining Unit has worked to analyze CDAs within the mining sector as an instrument for more sustainable and equitable benefits. This includes using CDAs as a tool to enhance community participation and consultation, manage expectations of involved parties, and ultimately maximize pro-poor benefits to impacted communities while helping to establish “social license to operate” for governments and industry. 

A book created to highlight strong contract clauses and explore how others could be improved. It goes beyond legal considerations to explore the policy questions and company interests underlying contract provisions—issues that are crucial for understanding and negotiating contracts, and for monitoring their enforcement.

A comprehensive reference on mineral resource taxation. The report discusses the history of royalties and the types currently in use, covering key practical issues such as tax administration, revenue distribution and reporting.

It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of various tax approaches, including the economic impact of these approaches on production decisions and mine economics, and the effect of royalty taxes on the investment climate, civil society and markets.

Mineral sector regulatory and fiscal systems have been undergoing major reforms across the globe. This book focuses on information and analysis relating to mineral royalties. It provides a general discussion of the concepts behind mining taxation, a guide to royalties, examples of royalty calculations and the ways in which these interact with other forms of taxation, as well as financial effects on investments under varying conditions. Primary information includes royalty legislation from over forty nations. The book discusses implications for investors and governments of various tax regimes and provides specific country case examples. A chapter is included on transparency, governance, and management of revenue streams. The appendices, in the second volume, contain brief summaries and selected statutes relating to royalties in a broad cross-section of nations around the world; sample spreadsheets of the results of mine models that were analyzed; and examples of administrative and distributional approaches to collecting royalties.
Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish, and Russian

Model Bilateral Investment Treaty for the United States of America

The SADC Model BIT Template provides advice to governments for future negotiations of investment treaties. The template reflects the objective of relating FDI to sustainable development. It contains various examples of provisions to address sustainable development concerns with commentaries. In particular, in includes a section dedicated to obligations of investors that covers anti-corruption, compliance with domestic law, environmental assessment and management, human rights, social and economic development issues and corporate governance – as well as reference to their enforcement. It also includes provisions to preserve the state right to regulate and the right to pursue development goals.

Model Bilateral Investment Treaty  for Canada

Model Bilateral Investment Treaty for the Republic of Colombia.

Model Bilateral Investment Treaty for Norway.

MMDA 1.0 is a collection of examples from existing mine development agreements and other materials that are designed to help negotiators and drafters by stimulating them to think about some of the difficult issues of legality, fairness, and balance presented by large foreign natural resource investment, particularly in developing countries. On one hand, MMDA 1.0 may be useful as an agenda for negotiating such an investment. On the other hand, MMDA 1.0 may be useful to the lawyers tasked with drafting an agreement for such an investment. Available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The practice note aims to increase policy-makers’ knowledge of the process of determining the value of exported minerals. The focus is determining the value (or quality) of mineral exports, not the quantity. While there is a risk that companies may underestimate both, verifying the value of minerals is more complex and requires more technical expertise. Additionally, most governments have some measures in place to verify quantity—for example, draft surveys to calculate the weight of a ship carrying minerals for export—whereas the skills, expertise and facilities to monitor mineral value are lacking. It sets out three main policy options for improving government oversight of mineral product export valuation (hereinafter referred to as “export valuation”). These are: direct measurement of mineral value, monitoring companies’ own mineral export valuation processes and a hybrid approach. The goal is that policy-makers will be equipped to make informed, risk-based decisions on how best to monitor the value of mineral exports.

In November 2016, over 100 jurisdictions concluded negotiations on the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting ("Multilateral Instrument" or "MLI")  that will swiftly implement a series of tax treaty measures to update international tax rules and lessen the opportunity for tax avoidance by multinational enterprises. The MLI already covers 99 jurisdictions and entered into force on 1 July 2018. Signatories include jurisdictions from all continents and all levels of development and other jurisdictions are also actively working towards signature.

A report that seeks to identify key challenges facing countries in relation to the strategic management aspects of national development strategies in 19 countries including leadership, planning, implementation, monitoring and review, co-ordination, and participation.

It also includes a pragmatic toolbox for government sustainable development managers and policy-makers.

The Natural Resource Charter is a set of principles to guide governments and societies’ use of natural resources so these economic opportunities result in maximum and sustained returns for a country’s citizens. The Charter outlines tools and policy options designed to avoid the mismanagement of these natural diminishing riches and work towards ensuring their ongoing benefits.

The Natural Resource Charter Benchmarking Framework is a tool for benchmarking a country’s management of oil, gas and minerals against global best practices. Created in response to government and civil society demand for a practical way to measure resource governance, the framework is the product of five years of expert input and testing in more than 15 country projects. The framework has been designed for a diverse set of uses, ranging from basic desk research, to training curricula, complex projects involving the production of primary research, cross-stakeholder dialogue, and evaluations of government strategy and its implementation.

This study examines the different types of legal regimes governing mining projects in 18 countries around the world with a particular emphasis on the key provisions in mining contracts as well as in law where countries have adopted a licensing regime. In so doing, it discusses some of the reasons for which some countries have adopted a licensing regime to fully or partially regulate the rights and obligations of the parties in a mining project, whereas other countries have opted to use mining contracts to do so. Where a country relies on contracts to govern some or all aspects of a mining project, the study further examines the relationship between a country’s mining contracts and its legal framework, taking into account the trend – towards more legislated terms – that minerals regimes are taking. In addition, it analyzes the mining contract negotiation and implementation process and attempts to identify potential opportunities to support resource-rich, low-income countries in managing their mining investments from the planning and preparation for a contract negotiation or licensing round to the implementation and monitoring of the mining investment.

The goal of this guide is to explain common topics that are addressed in natural resource contracts and to provide suggestions for improving contracts that are vague or unfavorable to host countries.

The guide also includes references to additional resources that will be useful for advocates who want to learn more about particular topics and issues.

Training kit consisting of a set of modules that cover the whole EITI process from implementation to monitoring and compliance.

The Navigator presented here navigates the user through relevant instruments to promote diversification of resource-rich economies. It presents instruments (initiatives, tools and good practices) and at the same time takes into account different types of economic linkages. By using the Navigator, representatives of partner governments and stakeholders from the private sector and development cooperation can identify instruments relevant for the respective context and find information about their application in the form of short descriptions, tables, diagrams and case studies.

This analytical framework is designed to assist investors in aligning their policies and actions with global and continental guidelines on responsible land-based investments, most notably the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) and the Guiding Principles on Large Scale Land Based Investments in Africa (LSLBI). The Framework offers investors a due diligence and risk management resource to apply to their land-based agricultural investments. It is an effort to provide advice and highlight best practices related to structuring investments in the most responsible way possible. The Framework includes red lines that indicate in which situations investment projects should be cancelled if no benign alternatives can be found. The Framework should be used throughout the life of the project, beginning with the preliminary project assessment, followed by the due diligence phase and continuing through the negotiation, agreement, operation and close-out phases. Hence, while the Framework ideally should be used from the beginning of a project, it can also be used after a project has commenced, as land tenure risks can and should be assessed well beyond the due diligence and start-up periods, especially in areas where communities have insecure land rights. The Framework was developed by an international group of land experts and vetted through consultation with a broad array of stakeholders. The New Alliance and Grow Africa Leadership Council welcomed and recognized the Analytical Framework as a tool for investors, and agreed to assess experience with the framework in one year.

The guide is an online, interactive reference that allows users to explore the opportunities in the EITI Standard in seven policy areas. These areas are based on the extractive industries decision chain and reflect some of the governance challenges most frequently raised by stakeholders. The guide also covers two process areas: civil society participation and multi-stakeholder group governance.

The website offers an economic model that estimates expected cash flows for an upstream petroleum project (petroleum exploration, development and production). Host governments can use it to increase their understanding of the revenue they can expect from the project at each stage.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

This reader comes from a series of 20 short, illustrated overviews of key topics in the extractives sector. Together they serve as a robust introduction for the lay reader to fundamental issues and concepts in oil, gas and mining sector governance. They contain helpful figures and infographics, and each reader has a standard format: key messages, concepts, case examples, and a final set of practitioner-orientated questions to ask.

In many countries rich in minerals, mining deals between industry and government have failed to deliver the benefits citizens expect—not only because of bad contracts but also because governments and civil society fail to effectively monitor and enforce company compliance with the terms of good contracts. This report examines the gaps in effective monitoring of mining obligations, identifies good practices and proposes practical avenues for improvement. 

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are the most comprehensive set of government-backed recommendations on responsible business conduct in existence today. The governments adhering to the Guidelines aim to encourage and maximize the positive impact MNEs can make to sustainable development and enduring social progress.

The OECD Policy Framework for Investment (PFI) provides a comprehensive and systematic approach for improving investment. It covers 10 policy areas and addresses some 82 questions to governments to help them design and implement policy reform to create a truly attractive, robust and competitive environment for domestic and foreign investment.

The PFI emphasizes the fundamental principles of rule of law, transparency, non-discrimination and the protection of property rights but leaves for the country concerned the choice of policies, based on its economic circumstances and institutional capabilities. One size does not fit all.

It is available in English, French, Chinese, Spanish, and Polish

A flexible tool which helps governments evaluate their investment policies in the ten areas essential to creating an attractive environment for investors and in enhancing the development benefits of agricultural investment.

This Review of Good Practices in OECD and non-OECD economies is published as a companion volume to the OECD Policy Framework for Investment (PFI) and provides analytical background material on each of the ten chapters of the PFI. These include investment policy, investment promotion and facilitation, trade policy, competition policy, tax policy, corporate governance, policies for promoting responsible business conduct, human resource development policy, infrastructure and financial sector development, and public governance.

This Toolbox is an on-line resource that captures emerging good practice to enhance corruption prevention and good management in public procurement in OECD and non-OECD countries. The tools contained in this website have been compiled from practices which have been successfully tested in a number of countries.

The tools are classified according to their use in the procurement cycle (pre-tendering phase, tendering phase, post-award phase, or entire procurement cycle) and also by theme according to the pillars underlying the OECD Recommendation (transparency, good management, prevention of misconduct, or accountability and control.)

With 51 countries developing new national action plans (NAP) by June 2016, there is a unique opportunity to commit to good governance of the oil, gas and mining sectors, which are at a particularly high risk of corruption in resource-rich countries. This briefing aims to encourage and orient Open Government Partnership (OGP) countries to commit to beneficial ownership disclosure, which impact the natural resource sector. It explores the rationale behind this commitment, provides country examples, and offers ideas around good practice.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an opportunity for governments to improve their commitment to contract transparency by making commitments around the proactive disclosure of oil, gas, and mining contracts. This brief aims to provide an overview of current standards and practices, and outline concrete examples of contract disclosure in action.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) offers an opportunity for governments to mitigate these negative impacts by making commitments on the proactive disclosure of social and environmental information related to the extractive industry. This issue brief aims to provide an overview of current standards and practices, and outline concrete examples of environmental disclosure commitments for consideration by governments and civil society organizations.

Walk-through guide on oil contracts: what they are, who participates in them, how the revenues should be handled and divided, what the different impacts of an oil project are, what its role is in fostering economic development, and how disputes between parties can be resolved.

A collaborative online platform for public procurement practitioners, this online platform seeks to provide a space where interested stakeholders from civil society, government, the private sector, media, academia, and others can share, learn, connect and collaborate around experiences in open contracting.

Open Contracting seeks to help ensure broader consensus around the importance of enhanced disclosure and participation in public contracting, at all stages of the contracting process and across all sectors. This community is used to support knowledge exchange between countries, identifying challenges and proposing solutions needed to address those challenges.

The Open Contracting Resources section contains a list of monitoring resources and a database of tender information from countries around the world. 

OpenCommunityContracts.org is a repository of publicly available community-investor or community-government contracts and agreements relating to agriculture, forestry, mining, oil and gas extraction and other natural resource projects. It features plain language summaries of key provisions and provides links to learn more about how each agreement was negotiated and implemented in practice.

A searchable database of large-scale land, oil palm and forestry contracts, agreements and key terms.

A growing repository of oil contracts from over 55 countries.

OpenOil is a company based in Berlin with a mission to create an open data framework for managing natural resources at a supranational level – because this is the only way natural resources will be sustainable in the long run. The way we build towards this long-term vision is to provide services which increase transparency and cost-benefit analysis of the industries as they are currently run. We offer training and consultancy services to governments, international organizations, businesses and NGOs and create mechanisms and processes for managing natural resources. Open financial models are the natural next stage of extractives governance. We are running a free mentoring program to develop financial models of upstream oil, gas and mining projects, with the aim of creating a worldwide network of practitioners.

Since 2013, Open Oil has been developing a standardized open ­source approach to financial modeling for mining and oil & gas projects. With these, we have set out a paradigm for how modeling should be adapted for public financial management.

When it comes to extractive industries (EI), who will benefit and how will be significantly determined on the informational playing field. In turn, this playing field is profoundly influenced by, and influences, power dynamics and interests among private, public, and social actors. Those who have the best access to and understanding of relevant information, and even the power to control what information others can access, will tend to emerge as the ones whose interests are best served.

An introduction to the factors that affect the efficient and transparent allocation of petroleum exploration, development, and production rights. It discusses the different political, economic and social interests that go into the allocation of these rights and touches upon various approaches to allocate them, including legal and fiscal issues. It then guides the reader through how to design an appropriate rights allocation system.

Policy guidance which aims to provide host country governments with policy options to maximize investment opportunities in clean energy infrastructure.

Provides policy makers and practitioners with effective decision making support in undertaking sustainable and well-considered reforms of public institutions that provide, direct and regulate port services in developing countries.

A website that provides practical guidance and best practice in the planning, development and legal structuring of infrastructure projects, especially those involving the private sector.

The website includes sample documents, clauses and legislation from the power, water and sanitation, telecom, and transport sectors. It also includes standard procurement and bidding documents. Materials are available in English, French and Spanish.

Written in a question-and-answer format with dialogues among local people, the 300-page combined reference manual and interactive curriculum addresses: mines & communities, meaning the mine life cycle, the changes it brings, how to participate in an impact assessment and monitor the management plan; the rule of law, including human rights and the roles and responsibilities of each actor; conflict and violence prevention and tools supporting improved communication, negotiation and community cohesion, including consultation or community protocols and participatory land use planning; the possible benefits of mining, and tools to capture mining’s benefits, including local content strategies, community development agreements, and local financial management; ways to address and minimize impacts on land (compensation mechanisms, and resettlement), environment and cultural sites; what actions people can take locally to voice their concerns, how to document and monitor (including baseline studies, community-controlled impact assessments, joint participatory monitoring) and options for access to remedy locally, nationally, regionally and internationally.

In each of the Modules, the Guide draws on and summarizes relevant aspects of domestic law (not only the mining law, but also the Constitution, law of decentralization, land law, environmental protection law, water law, public health law, and more), regional and international human rights law, gender, industry best practice, and advice and case studies from affected communities around the world.

The Guide is available in French. An abridged summary version of the Guide is available in French and English. A folder with the Guide’s reference documents is available on Dropbox.

The handbook presents a “how to” guide that can be used by governments, UN country teams, and other development professionals in preparing MDG-based national development strategies.

A guide that sets out and explains 10 principles that can help guide the integration of human rights risk management into contract negotiations.

The seven Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment cover all types of investment in agriculture, including between principal investors and contract farmers. In many cases no purchase of land or concessions are involved. Where this does occur the principles cover both large and small holdings. The Principles are based on detailed research on the nature, extent and impacts of private sector investment and best practices in law and policy. They are intended to distil the lessons learned and provide a framework for national regulations, international investment agreements, global corporate social responsibility initiatives, and individual investor contracts.

This resource provides: 

• A summary of each type of PPP arrangement;
• Sample agreements and clauses; and
• Checklists of issues to consider when preparing or reviewing PPP project documents. 

Some documents are also available in Spanish.

Investment in infrastructure is critical to economic growth, quality of life, poverty reduction, access to education, good quality healthcare and achieving many of the goals of a robust and dynamic economy. But infrastructure is difficult for the public sector to get right. The private sector (through public-private-participation - PPP) can help with the following: provide more efficient procurement, refocus infrastructure services on consumer satisfaction and life cycle maintenance, place the financial burden of providing infrastructure on consumers rather than taxpayers and provide new sources of investment. This is a translation of the Practical guide on PPPs for policy makers into Russian. The publication provides a practical guide to PPP and includes: how governments can enable and encourage PPP, how PPP financing works, what PPP contractual structures look like and most importantly, and how PPP risk allocation works in practice, including specific discussion of each infrastructure sector. Available in French and Russian.

The PPP Reference Guide is a comprehensive resource for PPP practitioners worldwide, drawing from global approaches and experiences.

The PPP Reference Guide seeks to provide advice on what PPP practitioners should know, rather than provide advice on what to do. The Guide sets out the main topics, looks at the key issues that must be addressed, and provides some of the most important references that PPP practitioners can turn to for answers and to enhance their own knowledge and understanding.

Also available in English, French, and Spanish.

It is structured into separate sections that focus on three main areas:

• What are PPPs, when might they be used and what are the advantages and disadvantages relative to public provision;
• What kind of policy, legal and institutional frameworks should be put into place to help improve their effectiveness; and
• What are the ways in which PPP projects can be developed and implemented.

A diverse range of case studies and institutional solutions, from all parts of the world, are presented in the PPP Reference Guide.

Provides an easy-to-use resource on the rail industry—what it is and what it does best—and provides an experience-based set of best practices to aid in the planning and execution of railway reforms. Professionals and practitioners who could benefit from this toolkit include government policy makers, legislators, regulators, railway management personnel, international financial institutions, and other stakeholders-including railway customers and employees—who seek improvements in railway financial and operational performance.

The toolkit is now available in English and Russian.

A measure of transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sectors. The RGI scores and ranks the countries, relying on a detailed questionnaire completed by researchers with expertise in the extractive industries. The Index assesses the quality of four key governance components: Institutional and Legal Setting; Reporting Practices; Safeguards and Quality Controls; and Enabling Environment. It also includes information on three special mechanisms used commonly to govern oil, gas and minerals—state-owned companies, natural resource funds and subnational revenue transfers.

A searchable database of oil and mining contracts, agreements and key terms.

The Guidelines state that responsible investments should do no harm, safeguard against dispossession of legitimate tenure right holders and environmental damage, and should respect human rights. This technical guide on Respecting free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) sets out practical actions for government agencies to respect and protect FPIC and for civil society organizations, land users and private investors globally to comply with their responsibilities in relation to FPIC, as endorsed by the Guidelines.

This Framework document sets out the core content of the Responsible Mining Index (RMI) 2020. It provides a comprehensive reference of the major aspects of responsible mining, based on society expectations of large-scale mining companies. As an extract of the RMI Methodology 2020, the framework includes information on a set of 43 topics, providing brief overviews of each topic as well as the indicators and metrics used in the RMI assessment to measure mining company policies and practices on these topics.

An effective grievance mechanism is an essential addition for any responsible company to its tools for monitoring, auditing and stakeholder engagement. But what exactly makes a grievance mechanism effective? This guidance aims to help answer that question. It provides a tool for companies and their local stakeholders jointly to devise rights­compatible, effective grievance mechanisms that maximize the opportunities to achieve sustainable solutions to disputes. A rights­compatible mechanism integrates human rights norms and standards into its processes and is based on principles of non­discrimination, equity, accountability, empowerment and participation. It can deal with most kinds of grievances (bar those raising criminal liability), including – but by no means limited to – those that reflect substantive human/labor rights concerns. Ensuring it is rights­compatible in both its process and outcomes is vital to the mechanism’s credibility and legitimacy, both locally and internationally, as well as to its potential success in practice. 

This paper analyses various standard clauses to apportion liability in the oil and gas industry. The issues touched upon are indemnity, exclusion of liability, and limitation of liability. It offers a discussion and explanation of each as well as examples from model contracts, and tips on how to negotiate, draft, and interpret each type of clause.

This guide has been developed in response to concerns regarding large-scale land acquisitions and the need to increase investment in agriculture. The guide supports application of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure for Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security at the national level by providing technical guidance on how to safeguard tenure rights in the context of agricultural investments, including in land. It aims to provide additional guidance to government authorities engaged in the promotion, approval and monitoring of investments at all stages of the investment cycle. The guide also serves as a reference for implementation of the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in October 2014 (CFS, 2014).

The purpose of this toolkit is to provide practical guidance in the monitoring and evaluation of the environmental and social sustainability of Agricultural and Rural Development programs and projects.

Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

The Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW) and the Southern African Development Community-Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF) are pleased to introduce the Southern Africa Resource Barometer (SARB) as part of their contribution to already existing efforts to promote better management of natural resources for the benefit of all SADC citizens. Several approaches are being pursued at the national level in a number of countries, such as the renegotiation of contracts with private companies, value added strategies, policies to favor reinvestment of revenues from commodities into the local economy, and debates about various ownership models, including the creation of state mining companies.

A study on the impact of stabilization clauses in investment contracts that affect a state's action to implement its international human rights obligations.

A guide that details how to engage project stakeholders in environmental and social impact assessment (ESIA) studies, as well as describing actions that must be taken to ensure that all stakeholders are listened to and included in the project’s feasibility assessment.

Contains guidance questions, case studies and brief explanations to lead the user through the process of identifying stakeholders who are affected by a project, to what degree and how they can influence the project. This guidance will then help to build a stakeholder engagement process.

This report covers four best practice areas concerning Public-Private Partnerships, namely:

• Managing a rigorous project preparation process;
• Conducting a bankable feasibility study;
• Structuring a balanced risk allocation and regulation; and
• Creating a conducive enabling environment.

For each of these best practice areas the report identifies and explores six critical success factors that governments should be aware of and seriously consider when preparing an infrastructure project to be delivered as a Public-Private Partnership.

This research project aims to analyze potential Dutch policy initiatives to address tax avoidance by mining companies in developing countries. These initiatives should stimulate developing countries to retain more government revenues from the activities of mining companies in their countries. Government revenues are currently eroded by tax avoidance strategies of mining companies. While this is not illegal, tax avoidance is increasingly seen as unethical and in violation of standards on corporate social responsibility, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. As many international initiatives are addressing tax avoidance and tax evasion, this report investigates how the opportunities offered by these initiatives can be utilized in an optimal way.

This practice note looks at tax incentives in the mining sector. For many developing countries, receipts from mining are often a major source of revenue. The central task for policy-makers, therefore, is to design fiscal regimes for the mining industry that raise sufficient revenue, while providing adequate inducement to invest. Many times, governments have given tax incentives to mining investors that have turned out to be overly generous, forgoing significant tax revenues and sometimes resulting in conflict with investors. Preventing similar occurrences from happening again demands sector-specific guidance on the design and use of tax incentives.

The extractive industries (EI) sector occupies an outsize space in the economies of many developing countries. Economists, public finance professionals, and policy makers working in such countries are frequently confronted with issues that require an in-depth understanding of the sector. The objective of this volume is to provide a concise overview of EI-related topics these professionals are likely to encounter. The volume provides an overview of issues central to EI economics; discusses key components of the sector’s governance, policy, and institutional frameworks; and identifies the public sector’s EI-related financing obligations. Its discussion of EI economics covers the valuation of subsoil assets, the economic interpretation of ore, and the structure of energy and mineral markets. The volume maps the responsibilities of relevant government entities and outlines the characteristics of the EI sector’s legal and regulatory frameworks. Specific key functions of the sector are briefly discussed, as are the financial structures that underpin environmental and social safeguards; investment of public revenues generated from oil, gas, or minerals; as well as extractive-based economic diversification. The authors hope that decision makers in ministries of finance, international organizations, and other relevant entities will find the study useful to their understanding and analysis of the EI sector.

This toolkit assists transport sector policy makers in low- and middle-income countries in implementing procedures to promote private sector participation and financing in the development of their road and highway sector.

The purpose of this report is to contribute to learning on key challenges, as well as good practice opportunities for practitioners working in and with the extractive industries, on how a gender-responsive approach can be embedded in project planning and implementation. In particular, the report explores how strengthened engagement with women can act as a key enabler for human rights due diligence. The report focuses on six select dimensions of human rights due diligence in extractive industries projects:

1. Community relations
2. Land acquisition and resettlement
3. Security
4. Local content
5. Grievance resolution
6. Strategic social investment

This toolkit is designed to increase the level of awareness on decommissioning and closure issues. It serves as guidance to government authorities, institutions and regulatory agencies, in natural-resource rich, developing countries, seeking to establish or improve closure and decommissioning programs for the extractives sectors.

The Republic of Kazakhstan is preparing a new Code on Subsurface and Subsurface Use. As part of this process, the government developed and shared for comment a ‘Concept’ outlining key policy directions for the new Code. Over the years, IIED has supported and participated in dialogues on transparency and accountability in Kazakhstan and the Caspian region. This issue paper discusses ways to install robust transparency provisions in the new Code, making recommendations to take the Concept’s policy directions to their full potential.

The principles laid down in this universal instrument offer guidelines to MNEs, governments, and employers’ and workers’ organizations in such areas as employment, training, conditions of work and life, and industrial relations.
The prominent role of MNEs in the process of social and economic globalization renders the application of the principles of the MNE Declaration as timely and necessary as they were at the time of adoption. As efforts to attract and boost foreign direct investment gather momentum within and across many parts of the world, the parties concerned have a new opportunity to use the principles of the Declaration as guidelines for enhancing the positive social and labor effects of the operations of MNEs.

A guide is to assist in the establishment of a legal framework favorable to private investment in public infrastructure. The advice provided in the Guide aims at achieving a balance between the desire to facilitate and encourage private participation in infrastructure projects, on the one hand, and various public interest concerns of the host country, on the other.

Available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

A BITs search engine which provides a user-friendly way to retrieve either: (1) all available BITs signed by one country, and (2) a specific BIT between two countries.

Facilitating investment is crucial for sustainable development and inclusive growth. To date, national and international investment policies have paid relatively little attention to investment facilitation. UNCTAD’s Global Action Menu for Investment Facilitation provides options for national and international policy needs. Any investment facilitation initiative cannot be considered in isolation from the broader investment for development agenda. The UNCTAD Menu also proposes measures to support investment facilitation in low income countries.

The Hub includes tools for policymakers to reference when formulating investment policies and negotiating investment agreements. It also provides an objective evaluation of a country’s legal, regulatory and institutional framework to attract direct investments. It also provides the world’s most comprehensive online database of national investment laws and regulations, as well as several other helpful tools.

This tool provides the world’s most comprehensive free database of investment treaties and model agreements. Main goals of UNCTAD’s Work Programme on IIAs:

• Reform the international investment agreements (IIAs) regime to enhance its sustainable development dimension,
• Provide comprehensive analysis on key issues arising from the complexity of the international investment regime,
• Develop a wide range of tools to support the formulation of more balanced international investment policies.

The UNCTAD Investment Dispute Settlement Navigator – the ISDS Navigator – is maintained by UNCTAD’s IIA Section. The ISDS Navigator contains information about known international arbitration cases initiated by investors against States pursuant to
international investment agreements (IIAs). Such arbitrations are also referred to as treaty-based investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) cases.

This handbook is intended to provide an overview of PPAs and the obligations, risks, and remedies that are found within them.

This paper looks at how governments can manage "unsolicited proposals" for PPPs--that is, proposals for PPP projects that originate from private companies, without being specifically requested by governments. The paper sets out the main challenges of dealing with such proposals--how to maintain private sector interest in coming up with project ideas, while ensuring competition and transparency in how these projects are developed and procured. The paper describes the various systems adopted by different countries to try to address these.

A reference and guide to improve the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests with the overarching goal of achieving food security for all and to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.

In 2000, a small group of governments, companies, and non-governmental organizations co-operated to develop and launch a set of Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (“VPs”). The Implementation Guidance Tools are non-prescriptive and provide a range of different tools on which companies may draw, according to their individual needs and circumstances. While VPs participants have been closely involved in the development of the tools, they have not been formally approved by them, since it is designed as guidance and is the result of co-operation between several organizations. While it has been designed with the extractives sector in mind, companies in other sectors may also find them a useful guide when operating in difficult environments. The tools serve as a helpful reference guide to any company seeking to ensure that its operations are undertaken in a manner that ensures respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are now being used in many countries to develop infrastructure projects. Typically, PPP transactions are based on a network of complex legal agreements – however, at the center of each transaction there is normally a PPP Contract, in the form of a concession agreement or similar document, between a government or other public entity (the Contracting Authority) and a private company or a consortium of companies (the Private Partner). The purpose of this Report is to present and discuss ‘recommended’ language in respect of a selection of these typically encountered provisions. The ‘recommendations’ contained in this Report are not meant to be prescriptive – specifically, they are not mandatory clauses for use in all PPP transactions which the World Bank Group financially supports. Instead, the objective of this document is to set out contractual language that has been found to be appropriate in many PPP transactions, and to describe the rationale for the provisions. By this means, the authors of the Report hope to foster discussion of these contractual provisions, with a view to helping to reduce the aforementioned time and expense associated with PPP Contract development. We also hope that, by encouraging consensus-building around these provisions, infrastructure will become more attractive as an asset class for a variety of investors, including institutional investors such as pension funds.

A number of countries have recently discovered and are developing oil and gas reserves. Policy makers in such countries are anxious to obtain the greatest benefits for their economies from the extraction of these exhaustible resources by designing appropriate policies to achieve desired goals. One important theme of such policies is the so-called local content created by the sector- the extent to which the output of the extractive industry sector generates further benefits to the economy beyond the direct contribution of its value-added, through its links to other sectors. Local Content Policies (LCPs) were first introduced in the North sea in the early 1970s and ranged from restrictions on imports to direct state intervention in the oil sector. While LCPs have the potential to stimulate broad-based economic development, which is necessary to alleviate poverty and achieve the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), their application in petroleum-rich countries has achieved mixed results.

This paper serves to introduce the topic by describing policies and practices meant to foster the development of economic links from the petroleum sector, as adopted by a number of petroleum-producing countries both in and outside the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The paper is organized as follows: chapter one defines local content and briefly illustrates the links between the petroleum sector and other economic sectors (where policies may be able to increase the economic benefits of the petroleum sector). An attempt is made to measure local content levels in a wide sample of petroleum-producing countries including net importers and net exporters, and countries at different stages of economic development to put LCPs in context and to consider if the structure of an economy is a key driver of local content levels. Chapter two discusses the arguments that have been used in favor and against the use of productive development policies in general and LCPs in particular. Chapter three provides an outline of the tools and types of LCPs that have been used by petroleum producing countries, and present their strengths and weaknesses. Chapter four focuses on issues related to the measurement and monitoring of LCPs, and discusses the limitations of alternative metrics. Chapter five provides a description of LCP objectives, implementation tools, and reporting metrics used in a selected sample of oil-producing countries including Angola, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Trinidad and Tobago and draw initial lessons that may be relevant to other countries.

The Rights to Resources interactive map presents information on citizen and community rights to natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa. National framework laws for each of the 49 countries in the region were reviewed to answer eleven questions about local use rights to five natural resources: water, trees, wildlife, minerals, and petroleum.

The information on the map can help Governments compare property rights regimes across natural resources and countries.

Users can also download the data set in Excel format.