Management Strategies for Avoiding Mining Land-use Conflicts in Developing Countries: A Case Study from the Côte d’Ivoire
Creators: name: Mory, Diakite
Publisher: name: CQUniversity
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 441001
subject: Applied sociology, program evaluation and social impact assessment

description: The development of resources above and below ground simultaneously involves and impacts a variety of stakeholders worldwide, including states, corporations and local populations. Land use issues are important to investigate in developing countries, such as in sub-Saharan Africa where most nations have opted for either agriculture or mining to boost their economies in the aftermath of political independence in the 1960s. Company-community conflicts in mining have been widely researched, but mining land-use issues are still commonplace globally. There are limitations to the understanding about the broader issue because most studies have focused on conflicts that are not land related. This thesis focuses on a case study in Côte d’Ivoire, where coexistence between agriculture and mining is increasingly a challenge. Côte d’Ivoire is rich in both agricultural and mineral resources, but the country was predominantly reliant on an agricultural-based economy until 2010, when mine operators were invited to expand operations in order to diversify national development. However, this economic policy shift has been problematic, making land a central subject of stakeholder conflicts. This challenge is expected to continue into the future, with a continued expansion of mining in rural settings where land remains the most important economic asset, source of livelihoods, and also a cultural asset, for local populations.
The aim of this research was to advance understanding of mining land-use conflicts in a developing nations context, using a case study site, Bonikro Gold Mine (BGM) from the Côte d’Ivoire. This single case study provided two rare opportunities to reflect critically on the broader phenomena. First was the fact that BGM’s operation is located in an area of higher agriculture value with a varying history of mining land-use issues. The other insight comes from the student’s position as an employee of BGM with professional position in Social Performance and working on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in mining from the corporate perspective.
The research is based on three main components including: a set of conceptual frameworks and theoretical perspectives; a desk review of specific available literature; and field investigations for qualitative and quantitative data collection. The conceptual frameworks identified for this study included a universal conceptual model developed to provide a comprehensive understanding of interaction between the causes and the effects of conflicts worldwide, and a specific contextual framework for the case study in the Côte d’Ivoire. The described theoretical approaches included social contract theory, legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, theory of exchange, power dynamics and conflict resolution theory. Of these, stakeholder theory and the theory of conflict resolution were identified as being particularly valuable in understanding the challenges presented by mining land-use conflicts and what exactly the nature of the problems are. 
Additionally, a theoretical six-nine (69)-hypothesis was proposed as a new way to explain the power dynamism in mining stakeholder relationships, which is a novel contribution to extending power dynamics theory. The desktop study indicated that mining land-use conflicts exist because of a variety of root causes, involving different stakeholder perspectives across government, company and community. 
Primary and secondary data were collected from both participants and the case study site to populate the research with context-specific and nuanced information. The field survey reflects the responses of 511 participants from mining-affected community groups and government officials across the study scope region. The survey was conducted using interview questions and survey questionnaires, and a total of 411 interviews and 100 surveys were held in person. Fieldwork was completed between November 2016 and August 2017. 
The results enabled the identification of four primary conflict drivers: discrepancy between national land-mining laws and local contexts; benefit sharing issues that include local employment, lost asset compensation and social investment; challenges in relation to stakeholder engagement and consultation; and mining-induced changes such as disruption of local structures, economic displacement and human resettlement, environmental degradation and quality of life concerns. 
Bringing the theoretical and practical perspectives of the thesis together, the key finding of the study is that solutions to conflicts require a balanced resource governance system, an adapted industry driven approach and a good negotiation capacity of local communities. A balanced resource governance system should normally provide a strong platform for establishing good relationships between mining stakeholders via property rights, approvals process, operating conditions and closure planning. Furthermore, mine operators have the potential to reduce impact of mining on local communities with industry driven processes such as CSR and social license to operate (SLO). CSR approaches can be adapted to the needs of communities in terms of managing stakeholder engagement and environmental nuisances, sharing benefits and resolving conflicts once they occur. The SLO can be used to acknowledge social acceptance towards mining activities, and can be measured through community perception surveys, which can help to avoid or resolve problems. Moreover, effective community capacity to negotiate local level agreements can help generate more positive impacts and improve the quality of stakeholder relationships. These individual solutions can be applied in tandem, or in a sequence depending on specific challenges that stakeholders face, but the combination of the strengths of different solutions can provide a more successful outcome to reduce mining land-use conflicts. 
The thesis concludes with recommendations on practical strategies that could be adopted by different stakeholders to reduce and manage conflict, as well as suggestions for future research activity that could extend this work in terms of both theoretical and practice outcomes. Overall, this research focused on a single case study, but it was useful to build theory on and contribute to the understanding of mining land-use conflicts, and the insights derived hold relevance throughout Côte d’Ivoire as well as in other developing countries.