The next group of CBA volunteers will be heading to East Africa in early April to participate in the country forums in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya discussing the impact of extractive industries there.
We continue to build our database of potential volunteers for this project. The general skill-sets needed are those with knowledge of extractive industries, land rights, environmental law, human rights (with particular focus on women and children).
If you’d like to volunteer but can’t make it to Africa, there are also opportunities to work with the project in Canada, doing things like document review that may be less exciting than boots on the ground, but every bit as vital.
If you’re a CBA member in good standing and you wish to be included in the resource bank, please send your letter of interest and CV to cbaidp@cba.org.
What’s next?
The purpose of the regional forum in November, and the country forums in April, is to discover what the countries themselves need to focus on. CBA volunteers will be called on to work with locals on developing a curriculum based on what the countries need, and then lawyers will be trained using that curriculum. The idea is that they will then go out and train other lawyers and community members, so that there will be a cadre of lawyers knowledgeable about extraction industries and ready to take on cases in support of the people in each of these countries.
To this end we’re asking CBA members with experience in gender-sensitive training and curriculum development to send in their CVs for consideration.
Among others, these are the areas of expertise we’ll be looking for:
- Mining, oil and gas regulatory regimes – international and national
- Land rights – compensation and resettlement
- Environmental protection – regulation, monitoring and sanctions
- Community engagement – Information, consultation and participation
- Community development – Revenue sharing and management
- Women’s empowerment – Consultation, participation and opportunities
- Addressing grievances – conflict resolution and access to remedy.
The process for selecting CBA volunteers is as follows:
- CBA management contacts potential volunteer from resource bank to scope for availability.
- Candidates who have confirmed availability are interviewed and rated according to the volunteer selection matrix.
- Highest-scoring candidates are asked to provide references.
- CBA management conducts reference checks and performs second round of interviews if necessary.
- CBA management finalizes volunteer selection, based on ratings and reference checks.