Download Agreement making and “consent” within the IFC standards

Agreement making and “consent” within the IFC standards framework
Tim Offor & Barbara Sharp, Pax Populus
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards provide a widelyadopted set of standards of great relevance to agreement making with Indigenous Peoples,
but they provide only an impetus to good practice and don’t constitute an end in
themselves.
Strong, fair agreements and enduring good relationships should be the goal, with the
standards providing the guiding framework.
There has been much argument and angst over the workability of the “Free, Prior and
Informed Consent” (FPIC) process advocated by civil society over many years.
Because of this, the opportunity inherent in a FPIC approach has been largely obscured
whilst arguments around the unworkability of “consent”, in particular, have been thrashed
out.
The establishment of FPIC as a central tenet within IFC Performance Standard 7 has dragged
it out of the realm of theory and worthy rhetoric. This has necessitated a practical analysis of
how FPIC can be realised as an opportunity for communities and companies alike, rather
than a unilateral threat to future resource development.
We present an Informed Consensus agreement making process that meets the requirements
of FPIC, unpacks “consent” to make agreement practically achievable and defensible, and
thereby provides a robust model for agreement-making with Indigenous Peoples.