Governance and accountability
Our President and CEO is ultimately responsible for Social aspects with our Group Sustainability Executive taking the lead in driving the implementation of our Sustainable Development and Social Performance Policies, the associated procedures and overall performance.
The Group Sustainability Executive is supported by regional-level environmental leads as well as dedicated site-level environmental teams who drive implementation at the operational level, including community development and engagement aspects. The Sustainability Executive is supported by our Group Sustainability Manager, and functional regional leads.
At an operational level, each mine has a manager with responsibility for community engagement and relations, including liaison with the Community Development Committee. They report to the General Manager of their mine and feed into regional leads who report to our Group Sustainability Executive.
Policies and procedures
Our approach to community development and engagement is set out in our Sustainable Development Policy and our Social Performance Policy
These set out our approach which is guided by three central tenets: Partnership, sharing benefits and engagement.
The epitome of this approach is the CDC model, which reflects our belief that no one knows the needs of local communities better than the communities themselves.
We have CDCs at all our operating mines. The CDC’s role is to allocate a community investment budget to those projects and initiatives most needed and desired by local stakeholders. Our community investment budgets are decided annually on a site by site basis with projects funnelled into one of five sustainable development goals. We find this models works best when our communities also contribute to project funding even if it is just a small amount, as it promotes and reinforces ownership, and engagement.
Each CDC is elected and made up of a mix of local leaders and community members, as well as representatives from local women, youth groups and representatives for disadvantaged groups. Each CDC receives requests for projects from the community, and meets to decide which ones will be supported and how these projects will scale, align with and contribute to regional development plans. The CDC will also manage and oversee the execution of the project Barrick is also a member of each community’s CDC; however, we only have one seat at the table performing a largely governance oversight function to ensure adherence to policy and decisions are made on a majority and consensus basis. To further amplify the impact of projects where possible community businesses and suppliers are also involved in the implementation of projects. This approach is applied across all our jurisdictions regardless of development status.
We also deliver jobs and economic opportunities to local communities through local hiring and buying policies and paying our fair share of tax.
Resolving grievances
AS part of our commitment to community engagement, all our operations have local grievance mechanisms in place, informed by the requirements of the UN Global Compact and the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
We carefully track the number and type of grievances, and work to resolve them in a timely manner. We have a target to resolve all grievances through our mechanism within 30 days of receipt.
Where resettlement needs to occur, a resettlement-specific grievance mechanism is created with dedicated team members responsible for the resolution of any grievances received.
Key targets and metrics
- Percentage of annual CDC commitments met
- Percentage of workforce who are host nationals
- Percentage of senior management who are host nationals
- Percentage of economic value that stays in country
- Percentage of grievances resolved within 30 days