Key messages

• Multi-stakeholder partnerships, particularly those that combine commercially driven private sector operations with a more socially-grounded community-based approach, are seen as a key means for achieving the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, and are in high demand from the international donor community.
• Golden Star Resources (GSR), and its subsidiary company Golden Star Oil Palm Plantation (GSOPP) in Western Ghana is an award-winning partnership that creatively aligns with the local context in rural Ghana, creating income and revenue in the communities outside the mining value chain.
• Physical isolation is a defining factor for partnerships in the mining sector; in the absence of a strong local government or independent civil society involvement in corporate social responsibility (CSR), communities and companies develop strategies that work but may also strengthen existing power imbalances in the communities.
• Agencies that wish to invest in such multistakeholder  partnerships should look beyond the ‘business-case’ of a partnership, and consider the interests and drivers of all stakeholders in these partnerships; independent facilitation of CSR can maximise the sustainability and value added of innovation in multistakeholder  partnerships

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Photo: Kadema gold mine. Courtesy: Madison Boratto – Flickr

In addition to structural support by ECDPM’s institutional partners Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland, this publication also benefits from funding from the Department for International Development (DFID), United Kingdom.

Authors

Alfonso Medinilla Head of climate and green transition - geopolitics and renewable energy