9 steps for Contract Monitoring: An Interactive Roadmap

Governments, companies, civil society and parliamentarians may have differences in vision, conflicting interests and capacity challenges when dealing with contracts (from investment agreement between the host-country government and the oil, gas or mining company, to social and environmental impact assessments, community development agreements, closure plans, and international standards such as the Voluntary Principles for Human Rights and the IFC Performance Standards) in the extractives sector (oil, gas and mining).

These different stakeholders can benefit from participating in a participatory or multi-stakeholder monitoring system that allows for these parties to gain trust and a better understanding of everyone’s concerns, preventing future conflicts and anticipate misunderstandings.

Getting started with contract monitoring can seem intimidating. The CM Roadmap makes it easier and guides you through the process.

• A 9-step process for contract monitoring: If you are just starting a contract monitoring project, or you want information on what contract monitoring entails in general, start at step 1 and follow the directions provided until you complete the process at step 9.

• Interactive online tool: If you have already started a contract monitoring project or you are looking for more specific information, this interactive online roadmap allows you to jump directly to those steps that apply to your project and skip the steps that are not relevant to you.

• Easy to navigate through the use of icons: If you are looking for information that concerns the environment, social and community aspects, local content, human rights, financial information, or health and safety in particular, you can simply follow the corresponding icons for these topics to read only the information related to these topics.

• A practical framework of existing knowledge from different sources that have experience with contract monitoring: If you are looking for existing sources, case studies, tools, and templates that can be used for monitoring, you can find them together with other relevant information in this roadmap. Original sources are referred and links to original papers or organizations are provided.

The idea for this CM Roadmap came into existence through the GOXI network. GOXI is a network for practitioners from public, private and civil society sectors working on governance issues in the oil, gas and mining sector. The network spotted the importance of and current lack of contract monitoring, and decided to start working together and gather information on it to bring it to the public’s attention. A working group on contract monitoring was set up, and together contributed to this CM Roadmap.

When information began to be collected it was noticed that most of the information already exists, but it is scattered in different papers, frameworks and tools and not always referred to as contract monitoring. The World Bank Institute has simply collected all this existing knowledge and put it all together in one place using a practical framework. There is always reference to the original source and a link to the original paper or organization is provided.

The CM Roadmap will be particularly useful to civil society organizations, the media and members of parliament. The tool particularly aims at strengthening civil society’s capacity to monitor extractive deals by understanding contract terms and provisions including related documents; ability to engage in participatory monitoring systems; knowledge on where and hot to collect relevant information, how to analyze the data collected and use this information if inconsistencies are found; understand mechanisms for resolving grievances through dialogue. However, there are particular sections that are relevant for other users as well, including government representatives and the private sector.

Engaging in participatory monitoring and the use of the CM Roadmap by different stakeholders involved in extractive industries related activities can contribute to gaining trust and better understanding of everyone’s concerns, preventing future conflicts and anticipate misunderstandings. More and better monitoring can translate in making sure the right amount of revenues are collected, and that the environment and community rights are respected.

It is intended that the CM Roadmap to be as up to date as possible, featuring the most accurate information as well as a wide range of sources, case studies and examples to draw on.

You can learn more about the Roadmap here.

If you have any comments on the contents of the roadmap, on the 9 step process proposed, on the case studies, if you know of any additional examples or sources, please let us know by emailing us at ngarza@worldbank.org and ckroon@worldbank.org. The Roadmap will be updated at least twice a year to incorporate feedback.