Compensation and resettlement

Borealis
land access
solution

Borealis
Land Access
Module Graphique

The Land Access module comprises four components: Budget & Planning, Negotiation, Compensation, and Resettlement.

This module allows customers to establish a transparent land access process with established rules and entitlements that correspond to their publicly released commitments. It allows them to collect, process and analyze different data sets (demographic, socio-economic, asset or land surveys, and GIS datasets) to:

Manage various compensation packages and agreements.
Follow up on different contractual building contracts and commitments.
Monitor the company's spending and analyze different scenarios while taking into account the spatial dimensions of the project.

KEY BENEFITS:

Improved decision-making based on facts
Increased respect and transparency towards local communities
Reduction of potential loss of production time caused by community disturbances
Appropriate use of allocated funds
On time and accurate payments corresponding to affected peoples’ entitlements – no one gets forgotten!

What is Land Access?

One of the first interactions with communities occurs when a mining or oil and gas company needs land access in order to develop a resource. These companies also need land to build supporting infrastructure (waste dumps, supply roads, pipelines, etc.). To do so, they have to implement a negotiation and compensation process in order to compensate local people for their land losses. Sometimes, relocation of families is also needed in order to gain land access.
The World Bank provides some guidance defining the parameters that need to be followed in their Operational Policy on Involuntary Resettlement (OP 4.12).

"Where it is not feasible to avoid resettlement, resettlement activities should be conceived and executed as sustainable development programs, providing sufficient investment resources to enable the persons displaced by the project to share in project benefits." OP 4.12 Objective (b)

Why is it important to address those issues?

Negotiation, compensation, and resettlement are delicate issues which need to be addressed while respecting local communities’ expectations and following a clear and transparent process (e.g. FPIC - Free, Prior, and Informed Community Consultation) as well as legal requirements. This is not always an easy undertaking, since companies and communities hold different views about land. In order to engage a fair dialogue with communities, companies need to keep track of all their activities regarding compensation and adopt a proactive approach.

The four components of the Borealis Land Access Solution:

Budget & Planning

This component helps managers to plan and organize costs according to project phases and deadlines, to track the evolution of spending, and analyze different scenarios according to given parameters while accounting for the geospatial dimension of the project. It covers the project costs for all compensation and resettlement activities, especially:

Phases and deadlines
Costs and evolution of spending
Land requests (required for the project itself or from the contractors)
Multiple scenario analysis

Negotiation

This component offers a framework to track and manage all the relevant information that is necessary for the company to obtain and retain the “social license to operate.” The role of this activity is to:

Track information related to the formation of committees process and the content of negotiation activities;
Manage committees' activities and ensure that they comply with their commitments;
Inform the population properly about the project, address their concerns, and ensure continuity in the dialogue;
Track and assess every consultation session or decision taken related to: crop rates, household types, affected area, affected peoples’ eligibility, etc.; and
Address affected peoples' eligibility to the various compensation and/or resettlement activities.

Compensation

This component enables the preparation and management of compensation agreements and packages for an individual, a household, or a community. It is used to manage and monitor the payment process over both the short and long term.

Planned Land Access
This type of land disturbance is either temporary or permanent and is pre-planned by the project’s developers. A link with the previous negotiation component of this module helps to follow-up the various steps involved in the compensation procedures. The goal is to formalize and execute the terms of the land access agreements that were initially negotiated with each person.
- Economic compensation (land access, land disturbance, land acquisition, etc.)
- Process monitoring/Payment procedures
Incidental Damages
Incidental damages compensation is a type of economic compensation that was not initially planned in the project development (for example: buildings cracking as a result of nearby drilling or enlargement of a drill pad after negotiated compensation has been paid) It is normally a one-off payment made to the complainant in order to compensate him/her for an unplanned damage.

In both cases, a payment procedure is implemented:
1. Compensation packages preparation/Payment campaigns planning
2. Payment logistics
  - - Cash call/funds preparation and transfer
  - - In-kind payment delivery (rations, materials, trees, seeds, inputs)
3. Payment delivery (payment reception, payment proof, reconciliation balance)
When applicable, this component is linked to the project’s finance department. In fact, when a payment is delivered, the database within the finance department is automatically updated, avoiding information redundancy and ensuring a quicker/closer follow-up. The component also enables the implementation of procedures that are compatible with the company’s financial business rules relating to the separation of duties and the creation of an audit trail.

Resettlement

When physical and/or economical displacement is inevitable, Borealis proposes a systematic approach to ensure an effective coordination and management during relocation phases. Various mechanisms are also available to ensure that livelihood restoration programs are respected in order to offer a sustainable future to affected communities.

More specifically, this component allows customers to:

Manage different Resettlement Action Plans (RAP) as well as their corresponding phases and involved households.
Follow household eligibility
Register socioeconomic surveys (the data management module acts like a data source and provides validation)
Facilitates identification of vulnerable stakeholders
Track livelihood restoration activities
- Land replacement
- Assistance for vulnerable people
- Training
Pursue livelihood monitoring