For a long time, much of our work in mining negotiations followed a relatively familiar model: two sides sitting across the table.
A government on one side. A mining company or investor on the other.
The discussions were complex, but the issues themselves were often relatively well defined: the technical aspects of a mining project, fiscal terms, contractual protections, risk allocation and, ultimately, money.
But over the past years, something has changed.
We have seen situations where, on paper, an excellent agreement had been reached between a government and an investor. The government would receive a significant share of the benefits generated by the mine. The project was economically attractive. The public should have been happy, or so we thought.
Yet the reality outside the negotiating room looked very different.
Public opposition, protests and a fundamental lack of trust could put the future of the entire project and its associated supply-chain* into question. That experience points to a simple conclusion: today, a successful mining negotiation can no longer stop with the two parties signing the contract.
The parties outside the room increasingly matter
Affected Communities, Indigenous Peoples, civil society organisations, local authorities, investors, lenders and other actors may not sit at the negotiating table. But they are part of the system in which the negotiation takes place, and can influence its outcomes. We call them third-party stakeholders. Indigenous Peoples, in particular, hold distinct rights under international human rights frameworks, including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which is also reflected in national legislation in several countries. Their meaningful participation is therefore not simply a matter of good practice, but a fundamental rights-based consideration and, in certain contexts, a legal requirement.
And excluding an important stakeholder does not make its interests disappear.
As one of Negotient’s partners Josh Flax put it, “slicing parties out” and failing to give them an appropriate place in the process can itself create problems. The objective is not to give every stakeholder a veto over every decision. It is to understand who matters, what their core needs and concerns are, and how they need to be involved if an agreement is to endure. This goes beyond dealing with local opposition.
A mining project operates within a complicated network of relationships between national and local governments, different communities, Indigenous groups, local and international NGOs, investors, lenders and companies. Existing mechanisms, whether consultations, governance-elated structures such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) or FPIC processes, play an important role, but do not necessarily resolve the relationships and conflicts between all these different actors, particularly if they are not carefully designed and effectively implemented.
That is why we increasingly think about mining negotiations as multi-stakeholder systems rather than bilateral transactions.
And the negotiation starts much earlier than most people think
Third-party stakeholder negotiation is not only relevant when protesters are already outside the gate.
In our experience, it starts when an investor first considers entering a market. It continues while a project is developed and contracts and permits are negotiated. It remains relevant once operations begin and new tensions, expectations or grievances emerge.
Our recent work and discussions have reinforced an important distinction between preventive engagement and crisis response. Early engagement creates space to understand concerns and identify opportunities around employment, training, local services and community benefits before positions become entrenched. Once protests have emerged or trust has been lost, rebuilding relationships is much harder. It is not necessarily too late, but getting parties back to the table requires considerably more time and effort from everyone involved.
At Negotient, we work in both situations. But wherever possible, the better approach is to engage before a conflict needs to be resolved.
That changes the question.
Instead of asking: How do we respond to opposition to this project?
We should be asking: What would a negotiation process look like if the interests of the people affected by the project had been understood from the beginning?
Start by understanding the problem, not designing the meeting
There is a temptation in difficult stakeholder situations to move quickly to visible solutions: organise a consultation, establish a roundtable, appoint a mediator or create a grievance mechanism.
But a process is only useful if it is designed around an actual problem statement.
In complex multi-party negotiations, that means starting with assessment. Who are the relevant stakeholders? Who represents whom? How do the different groups make decisions? What are their interests? Where are the relationships between them strong, and where might conflicts emerge? What institutional, cultural and resource constraints affect their ability to participate?
Only then can the process itself be designed.
That might involve:
identifying stakeholders who have been overlooked;
understanding their interests rather than only their stated positions;
identifying underlying problems and potential conflicts before they escalate;
agreeing who needs to be involved, and at what stage;
structuring agendas and decision points;
establishing appropriate communication channels;
determining where facilitation or mediation is useful; and
creating an ongoing dialogue rather than a one-off consultation.
A different way of thinking about mining negotiations
At Negotient, we are still refining how we describe this work. But the direction is increasingly clear.
We need to go beyond bilateral negotiation and stakeholder engagement.
Our team brings experience from different sides of complex processes: advising governments and industry, working with Indigenous and tribal communities, and designing negotiations involving many parties at the same time. Our experts Josh Flax and Moira Caruso, for example, bring experience in designing and facilitating complex multi-party negotiations, including a process involving approximately 25 parties. Across the wider team, we combine expertise in mining, community engagement, human rights and government with practical experience working in diverse local contexts across emerging and developing countries.
We know that these challenges are shared by many actors across the mining sector, including governments, investors, mining companies and third-party stakeholders themselves. There is rarely a simple answer, which is why we are keen to continue the dialogue. We welcome your thoughts and comments, and invite you to reach out to our team to discuss the challenges you are facing and explore whether our approach could help.
* Note: In our experience, the impact rarely stops at the mine gate. Through social media, news coverage, NGO reports, local protests travel up the supply chain and reach end customers — from automotive manufacturers to electronics brands — exposing them to reputational risks and potential human rights due diligence obligations, requiring engagement with the mining company itself.
