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In this notebook, Jo Render describes a corporate training initiative that helps the private sector to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The process was developed through a collaboration between the NGO Business for Social Responsibility and First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous advocacy organization. The trainings, which are focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging) are founded on respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the development process.In December 2001, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights convened a workshop on "Indigenous Peoples, Private Sector Natural Resource, Energy and Mining Companies and Human Rights." The physical format of this workshop was indicative of the general atmosphere surrounding the issue: Indigenous representatives were lined up on one side of the room, companies were lined up along the other, and nongovernmental organizations sat in the middle. Governments chose not to attend. Toward the end of two days of very tense discussions, a representative from Rio Tinto (a U.K.- based mining company) asked a question of the Indigenous and NGO participants: rather than spend more time repeating everything that companies do wrong, can we (the communities and NGOs) provide more explicit direction to companies on how to do things right?

This challenge was accepted by First Peoples Worldwide and Business for Social Responsibility, two U.S.-based NGOs working internationally on corporate responsibility. Together we developed a training initiative designed as one step in increasing the capacity of companies to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The training, which is focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging), is founded on a respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the decisions that affect them. Both Indigenous people and company personnel have been involved in the design and implementation of the curriculum. At the core of the training is the concept of free, prior and informed consent.

While many governments refuse to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have this right (the right to approve, or reject, a project in their territory), it has been recognized in international law, and national governments are slowly coming around. Laws are rarely specific enough, however, to tell a company what kinds of actions and decision-making processes will meet this expectation. They also neglect to provide an overview of everything at the community-operational level that can affect how communities and companies achieve consent. Our training currently takes the form of a two-and-a-half-day workshop that provides broad, general guidance on the importance of developing good engagement practices with Indigenous peoples in order to achieve free, prior and informed consent. While we do not guarantee that effective engagement will result in consent, we emphasize that without it, consent cannot be achieved. Ideally, company participation in the training will include multiple voices representing the different company roles that affect, and are affected by, community relations, such as environmental management, land negotiations, government relations, executive offices, communications and investor relations.

The workshop content was tested in February 2003 and presented fully to a group of nine companies in March; a shorter version was tried in November. We were working to create interest in more in-depth training on community engagement techniques at the company site level, and, while we have received expressions of interest in this second step, specific programs have not yet been undertaken. Participants from the March workshop provided very positive feedback, but we do not yet know the level of our impact on the companies at the institutional level. As such, this paper is a description of a "tactic in progress."

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