ABSTRACT
This chapter provides guidance on how to develop partnerships to manage social issues in the extractive industries. The partnership model is based on the pooling of core competences across organisations drawn from the three sectors of society: business, civil society and government. A key feature of the assessment will be an in-house exploration of the strengths of the organisation relevant to its contributions to the partnership. The task of exploring the possibilities of collaboration between oil, gas or mining companies, civil-society organisations and government authorities falls into two parts: namely, internal assessment and consultation. Most companies already have many of the skills needed to transform external relationships into partnerships. These include skills in risk assessment, public consultation, external communications and public relations, and project management. The building of successful partnerships requires that all partners be able to adopt a style of negotiation that accommodates these distinct differences and yet still achieves consensus.
