Social & Economic Development

Maintaining a social license is often regarded as one of the biggest risks facing the mining industry. At Barrick we don’t view it like that. Instead, we see the countries and communities in which we operate as partners in our business who together give us a critical opportunity to deliver value.

Highlights

Our Communities

For more than 30 years’ operating both in the global south and in developed nations, we have demonstrated how responsible mining can create, deliver and support long-term sustained and sustainable socio-economic development.

Responsible mining that supports, grows and sustains people is at the heart of the Barrick approach.

Our Vision for Community Relations and Development

The mineral endowment of a country is for the benefit of the people. Barrick strives to be the preferred mining partner to create value out of those resources on the ground. Responsible mining that supports, grows and sustains people is at the heart of the Barrick approach.

We seek to use the development of a national resource and asset to catalyze the socio-economic upliftment of local people and diversify prosperous local economies that thrive long after the mine gates shut.

These principles are formalised in our Sustainable Development Policy and our Social Performance Policy. These policies and further details regarding our approach to Community Development and Relations are available on our website.

How we deliver this vision is guided by three key principles:

• Partnership – We are firm believers in the principle of stronger together. Uplifting communities and driving development is not a task which can be achieved alone. It requires partnership and cooperation between all actors in the chain. Our model is to put local communities at the heart of discussions and the decision-making process, and we strive to help them build capacity and resilience. By doing this we help them build resilience and capacity while we gain trust and ultimately the social license needed to run our operations. Beyond our own contributions, we also seek to use our presence to attract and catalyze additional funding to create scale for projects, and multiply positive impacts. We do this by working to identify, align and contribute to local, regional and national development plans, and partnering with public and private sector specialists to maximize development.
  
  
• Sharing the benefits – Mines require a large pool of workers and a wide range of goods and services to operate efficiently. We see these needs as an opportunity to share and create value. We do this by focusing on hiring and buying practices that leverage these needs to inject money into local communities and our host countries, and invest in foundational human rights that prepare individuals to access these opportunities. Over time, this builds capacity and creates additional opportunity.
  
  
• Open, honest and patient communication – No one knows the needs and wants of the community better than the communities themselves. We take time to build relationships grounded in trust and put them at the center of our community support decision-making processes.

Our Community Development Committees (CDCs)

Our tool for implementing our community development vision is the Community Development Committee or CDC, which we establish at every operation. A CDC is an elected group from the community whose role it is to allocate the mine’s community independent investment budget to projects aligned with community priorities and needs. Each CDC is made up of a mix of local leaders as well as representatives from women, youth and disadvantaged groups in the community. Barrick is also a member of each CDC. However this is largely in a governance and oversight capacity to ensure procedure is followed from the CDC Code of Conduct to responsible supply chains.

The CDC process follows the following steps:

• Input for Engagement – The CDC receives requests and proposals for projects from the community. The CDC will check that the project proposals pass the strategic filters.
  
  
• Meet and Assess – The CDC meets to assess the proposed projects and to decide which ones will be supported. Decision-making is guided by Barrick’s investment filters, regional development plans and the potential to scale the project.
  
  
• Oversee and Execute – The CDC is also responsible for the management and oversight of the project.

Amplifying Benefit

Each site’s community investment budget is decided annually on a needs and projects basis, and is driven by the CDC. To reinforce community ownership and engagement with projects, we work to ensure communities and patrons are invested themselves, either through contribution of funding, time, resources or land. We also seek to amplify the benefit of projects by engaging with local entrepreneurs, tradesmen and labourers to undertake the work.