Empowering communities to use data for accountability in mining

Story of change

In the Philippines, the Bantay Kita-Publish What You Pay Philippines coalition (BK-PWYP) identified that EITI data could be useful in helping indigenous communities to demand their share of royalty payments from mining on community land.

But making data accessible would not in itself create change. BK-PWYP realised that it needed to understand communities’ concerns and priorities before advocating for particular approaches, tools or data use. The members of the community of Narra, in Palawan, had actually lost hope of claiming royalties from mining and did not want to get involved in a process they felt would ultimately not work. The community felt denied the power to make decisions relating to their land – land that was central to their culture, identity, wellbeing and livelihoods.

The coalition therefore began working to build the communities’ capacity on their rights more broadly, including indigenous people’s rights under the Mining Act and Indigenous Peoples Rights Act. Building on community members’ increased confidence from their new knowledge, BK-PWYP also enabled indigenous communities to understand the value of asking for data about all development interventions in their ancestral domain, including mining. It was then possible to empower them to use advocacy to demand their share of royalty payments.

This process showed that in order to be helpful to indigenous communities, BK-PWYP needed to enable them to identify their own issues in relation to extraction.

As a result, the communities are now able to engage in discussions on natural resource governance and to make decisions about their own lands.

Discover the full story here.

The PWYP Stories of change capture progress and showcase the impact of PWYP members. They help reflect on advocacy approaches taken by PWYP members, with the intention of learning and strengthening our connected advocacy within our movement.