The Canary in the Cage: Community Voices and Social License to Operate in Central Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper is the product of SRK Exploration Services UK through the EU funded Horizon 2020 INFACT project and research undertaken as part of the doctoral study by an associate consultant. It marries European wide research through INFACT with doctoral research into the mining sector and communities in Serbia, to illustrate general and country specific issues around social license to operate. The paper illustrates how gaps are created in the extractive industries conceptualization of host communities and how that precipitates social licence to operate failures. It challenges the extractive industries use of the stakeholder concept and questions how equipped the sector is to engage and assess community-based business risk. Solutions to social licence failure in the extraction industry involve engaging with the conflict and enabling dissenting voices at an early stage of project development, rather than quelling them. Resolution to social licence issues is more likely if local communities are supported to retain control of and articulate potential conflict, rather than the conflict being captured and utilized by external actors.