Events around a Newmont mining site in the west African nation of Ghana demonstrate the pressing need for multi-party action on conflict management... Campaigners are concerned about two issues related to the Ahafo project: the environmental impacts and the treatment of local people whose land has been expropriated by the project... [E]nvironmental impacts [identified by NGOs]...include depletion of water supply for drinking and irrigation; groundwater contamination because of use of cyanide and sulphuric acid at the site; and pollution from tailings... It is, however, the impact of the project on local communities that has attracted most attention. Campaigners argue that 9,500 people have lost their land and livelihood, and have not been adequately compensated...[I]n November last year...a local farmer was shot, and three others injured during a demonstration near the Newmont site...Newmont does not appear to have had very much support from campaign groups that might have helped them. The NGOs who wrote to the IFC to protest at the proposed loan do not seem to have engaged with Newmont in the difficult and messy business of making the Voluntary Principles work... To drive sustainable change, NGOs may now need to collaborate with companies on finding the solutions, often messy and dirty, that make this happen.