The first communities in Singida, Tanzania, knew of a gold prospecting licence being granted on their lands, was seeing technicians with equipment surveying the area by drilling holes and digging trenches on their farms. What was months, possibly years, of planning for the company, the farmers and their families had to figure out in minutes, as trenches were dug and boreholes drilled on 25 farms. 

Since then, some landowners have tried, unsuccessfully, to raise their complaints with the company that was granted the licence after the project allegedly restricted access to land, compromised their ability to feed themselves and their families, and displaced them with little or no compensation. After several attempts to seek intervention from the company, residents appealed to HakiMadini, a Tanzanian NGO, to advocate for them. HakiMadini documented the grievance and petitioned the concerned company for a response. The company responded, but according to HakiMadini, it did not address the issues regarding the mining location referred to in the petition.

Human rights language used by international mechanisms and NGOs to frame grievances isn’t necessarily accessible or useful for suffering communities. Sometimes grievance mechanisms are even designed and implemented by those whom the community blames for harms it has suffered.

From the moment this community found out what was happening to their land, they were on the back foot. They had little time to prepare and navigate the complex and protracted routes to raise their concerns. Communities face powerful business interests, who often have national and local authorities on their side; the inequity in arms is already alarming before you take into account the practical obstacles communities face, like knowing what information they need to raise a complaint, which courts or other mechanisms they can access, and how to start a proceeding. 

These sorts of impacts have played out across East Africa as the region remains a favourite for overseas investment from Europe and North America, and increasingly from China, India, and the Middle East. In Ethiopia, indigenous populations have been displaced to pave way for agribusiness, with dozens killed, and many more injured and arbitrarily detained.  In Kenya, Jamaa Resource Initiatives is the in process of supporting residents of the Yala Swamp area aggrieved by US-based Dominion Farm’s activities, including claims that the farm investment has impoverished them.

These are serious human rights abuses, but the human rights language used by international mechanisms and NGOs to frame grievances isn’t necessarily accessible or useful for suffering communities. Sometimes grievance mechanisms are even designed and implemented by those whom the community blames for harms it has suffered. That’s why  Business & Human Rights Resource Centre have run a series of workshops in partnership with African NGOs: so experts on supporting communities in documenting companies’ local impacts and advocating for their rights can learn from each other and from emerging tools developed from experience in other Global South regions.  We have now set up a Community Action Platform to capture and share this learning globally.  It allows users to explore tools, resources and approaches from peer organizations; learn from positive examples of community action; and connect practitioners to each other for mutual support.   

Documentation is not in itself an end and does not necessarily guarantee an intervention, but the odds are stacked steeply against any community who attempt to access remedy without it. 

So what can communities and the advocates supporting them do?  The answer is to put affected communities at the centre of action to document companies’ impacts and remedy abuse.

Fact finding and proper documentation of grievances are key to challenging human rights abuses involving companies. Communities can document issues, not with overly technical language but in terms easily understandable by those impacted and other stakeholders. Such documentation communicates what the alleged abuse is, the known or suspected perpetrators, the victims, and the harm that they have experienced or that they fear.  It forms the basis of interaction with local actors to engage in interventions with actors such as the companies themselves, parliamentary watchdogs, legal aid organizations, media, consumer organizations, shareholders and the company’s financiers. Documentation is not in itself an end and does not necessarily guarantee an intervention, but the odds are stacked steeply against any community who attempt to access remedy without it. 

Effective community-driven documentation tools must be easy for the community to understand and use. They avoid complexities of human rights language and enable affected people to put the issues in their own language. Several models are already in use. For instance, ESCR-Net and Business & Human Rights Resource Centre have developed a checklist to help communities in documentation of alleged human rights abuses by business.

The aim is simple:  To enable affected communities to effectively document and communicate their concerns about outside investments that affect land, water, air and other vital resources -- in order to place them on a more equal footing with companies and others making these investment decisions.  When this happens, investments will proceed in a way that is sustainable for all by avoiding community conflicts, and contributes to the community rather than harming it.

Existing civil society organizations are relatively few in number and limited in capacity, compared to the huge range of areas where investment is happening. It is therefore essential to devise ways in which communities can engage in credible but inexpensive fact finding strategies to permit them to capture and convey accurate and basic documentation and the essence of their grievances. The innovative approaches taken by organizations such as HakiMadini, Jamaa Resources Initiative and others, and documented through a community-driven process offer  a helpful model for how this might be scaled up to more organizations and communities.

As Racheal Chagonja, Coordinator of HakiRasilimali, told us at our workshop in Dar es Salaam in June, “Generating and sharing information at the community level is an essential first step to organizing community members to proactively and constructively engage with companies in dialogue.” (HakiRasilimali is a civil society coalition working for more responsible natural resource use in Tanzania.)  Those keen on ensuring that business investments are socially sustainable, contribute to local development rather than conflict, and respect human rights must give due attention to communities’ capacity to document investments’ local impacts, learn from each other, and advocate for themselves.