Sustainable Development: Community

Key to the success of the Project's HSEC operation is a commitment to community health, education and the development of local businesses and necessary infrastructure. To achieve this, strong relationships with government and community stakeholders have been established and will be maintained.

Government and Community Relations

The Project's external relations program is built around core values of trust, mutual respect and understanding.

At a practical level, this includes adopting a long-term horizon, personalising relationships through informal and social interactions, respecting ethnic, cultural and language differences, listening and learning from the community, and taking grievances seriously.

Guinea Alumina Corporation has developed measures for managing community and regional government expectations for the project including:

  • Strategies for stakeholder engagement, particularly with local government and project-affected communities
  • A local employment plan
  • A comprehensive community development program to address capacity building, training and community health as a priority.

A comprehensive community consultation process, associated with a resettlement action plan and ongoing community programs has been established.  

Community Consultation

A public consultation and information disclosure program (PCD Program) was initiated early in the project's development. The PCD Program is structured in three phases. The primary objectives of the first phase were scoping and information exchanges for the preparation of the Social and Environmental Assessment (SEA) documents. The second phase focused on disclosing the information contained in the SEA documents, while the third phase (to be completed) will focus on monitoring and evaluating the implementation of environmental and social management plans.

Community Support

As part of the Guinea community, Guinea Alumina Corporation is involved in varied community initiatives that support the growth of the region, and the wellbeing of Guinea’s people. 

With local communities, Guinea Alumina has also facilitated the development of critical community infrastructure including four health posts (and an upgrade of a fifth post), four schools, and two community centres. GAC also supports training related to the management of these facilitates.

Developing the capacity of individuals, businesses and institutions is an instrumental part of GAC's community development program.

Community infrastructure map

Local Enterprises

GAC is supporting the mentoring and development of small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). This provides a cost-effective, reliable source of goods and services for its business, while supporting businesses to become independently successful.

With improved systems, processes, knowledge and skills, these SMEs will become more competitive in the marketplace and benefit from the significant pipeline of opportunities in mining and other industrial sectors in Guinea.

Guinea Alumina is exploring a range of funding and training initiatives. One initiative is a program with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) who has been engaged to investigate local SME capability and link the project with local SMEs.