Beyond Zero Harm Research Project & Participatory Local Development in Extractive Areas Study in Ghana, Burkina Faso and Guinea

In February this year, ACET started a working partnership between the World University Services of Canada’s (WUSC) West Africa Governance and Economic Sustainability in Extractive Areas (WAGES) project to pilot the Beyond Zero Harm (BZH) Framework in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Guinea. This Framework is a multi-stakeholder initiative developed by key members of the Canadian mining industry, academia and civil society organisations and it is aimed at testing a set of universally recognised indicators to measure changes in social and economic well-being in mining communities. The framework seeks to encourage diverse stakeholders from surrounding mining operations to also develop a common understanding of the general conditions of community well-being. A key objective of the framework is to collect better data and information on community economic and social well-being to inform dialogue and better development outcomes at the local level. The framework also emphasises the participation of women and youth in the process who are often marginalized in the development process and subsequently the beneficial development outcomes. In addition to piloting the framework, a key objective for ACET will be to identify key lessons and knowledge sharing across countries. This will provide insights concerning how to potentially improve the process with the aim of scaling up the use of the BZH Framework as a tool to involve stakeholders in mining regions in a dialogue on sustainable development based on an informed understanding of the evolution of community well-being. ACET will endeavour to go beyond the common mining term of « Zero Harm », and help put in place a process that drives collaborative and strategic planning between local stakeholders that actually improve community well-being. So far, we have finalized the methodology, work plan and budget for the project, completed preliminary field visits in all 3 countries and refined the data collection tools. The Ghana field study has also been completed while that of Guinea and Burkina Faso has been slated for the first quarter of 2019. The project ends in October 2021 During the first quarter of 2019, ACET submitted a progress report and financial statement on the first year of activities. The country consultants began preparations for the third field visit on data collection including household surveys in the communities and consultations with local authorities and mining companies. During spring 2019, the BZH project undertook the third round of country visits, with the following objectives: validate the revised aggregated priorities and co-created indicators; offer training for enumerators and supervise data collection; discuss the BZH project with key stakeholders; and train BZH Working Group members on the social audit and its conduct. In early summer, country validation meetings were held to offer stakeholders an opportunity for participatory analysis of survey results and the social audit. The validation workshop for Guinea was postponed due to the ill health of the country researcher. A separate report on the validation workshop and the household survey will therefore be submitted in the next quarter. In q3, ACET submitted the first set of deliverables; country reports for Ghana, Burkina Faso and Guinea C*onakry. The financial report and progress report which provides a synopsis of all the activities undertaken were also submitted in this quarter. To assess the project implementation thus far, a delegation from WUSC visited ACET in August. Writing of the case study reports and synthesis report which are due in November also commenced this period. During the reporting period, ACET: - Supported the organisation of the WUSC BZH workshop, held in Ouagadougou 5th-7th December. - Chaired sessions and gave numerous presentations during the above-mentioned workshop. - Finalised the three country reports - Finalised 3 country case studies - Finalised the Global Synthesised report - Commenced the recruitment process for country researcher in Burkina Faso, to replace the previous one who exited December 1st. During the workshop in December 2019, organised by ACET and WUSC, it was agreed that the original 2018 methodology was suboptimal in terms of clarity and coherence. In order to ensure that the methodological update was strategically sound, it was agreed that ACET and WUSC would first undertake a mid-term review. The mid-term review was finalised during Q1 2020 and proved very helpful in ensuring a shared understanding of the projects strengthen and weaknesses. In Q2 2020. The second year of implementation of the project was scheduled to commence in January 2020 but postponed to the second half of 2020 as a containment strategy of the COVID-19 outbreak. In the interim, the team refined the methodological approach considering the lessons learnt during the first implementation year. We began developing a workflow manual, revised the global report and the country report templates in collaboration with the WUSC team this quarter. An amended contract between ACET and WUSC is expected to be signed before work commences in September 2020. Q3- An amended contract between ACET and WUSC has been signed. Work is expected to commence in the next quarter. Q4 2020 ACET under the second phase of project implementation will collaborate with the World University Services of Canada (WUSC) to recruit, mobilize, and lead a team of researchers to conduct research for the Beyond Zero Harm (BZH) framework, which involves the participatory monitoring of community well-being in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Guinea. The first two of the three project objectives were completed in 2019. The second year of implementation of the pilot project emphasizes on the third objective of the BZH framework which seeks to connect local and regional practitioners of the BZH approach and support comparative learning across three countries. The project team will also provide recommendations for methodology adjustments and potential scale-up of the BZH framework to locations beyond those involved in this pilot. While we scheduled to begin this project cycle in January 2020, implementation was tardy due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Work in the first few months of 2020 focused on refining the methodological approach, and considering the lessons learnt during the first implementation year. This has led to the development of a workflow manual in collaboration with the WUSC team. The manual is expected to guide country researchers in documenting the research processes in a uniform manner across all study countries. The global report and country report templates have also been revised. An amended contract between ACET and WUSC was signed in September 2020. Research questions: To address the project objective, ACET developed the questions below to finalize and disseminate research findings, and contribute to the improvement and scale-up of the BZH framework.  Effectiveness of the BZH framework in supporting wide participation?  Effectiveness in achieving inclusive, accountable development outcomes?  Sustainability of the BZH approach?  How to maximize learning and sharing? Ghana Project: The BZH framework is being piloted in the Bondaye Area Council of Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality in the Western Region of Ghana. Two community visits were undertaken this review period. The first visit, on October 24th, 2020 was to organize and facilitate additional focus group discussions and key informant interviews to deepen local understanding of how well-being is defined and can be measured by the community. On 9th November 2020, the project team embarked on a second community visit focused on building the capacity of the BZH working group to undertake data collection, analysis, and validation among other related activities in pursuit of the BZH framework. Guinea Project: The project objective under this research cycle is to introduce the local communities, the members of the Working Group and the Communal Council to the new methodology of the BZH pilot project and to enable them define well-being. This will in effect help revise the co-created indicators in order to better influence the local planning process. Guinea’s first community visit took place in the municipality of Sangarédi from the 18th to the 23rd of November 2020. The objective of this visit was for the country researcher to synthesize the BZH consolidation pilot project document (PowerPoint presentation), clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the different actors and to undertake focus group discussions. A second field visit in Guinea is planned for January 2021 Burkina Faso: The BZH Burkina research project is intended to be a reference for the rural municipality of Bagassi located in the Balé Province in the Boucle du Mouhoun region. ACET had its first community visit in October 2020. The overarching goal of the visit was to (i) define the roles of the researchers for the second phase of the BZH research and educate them on BZH’s definition of well-being and (ii) identify priority areas and indicators. The second visit from 14 to 20 December 2020 was intended to deepen the priority areas and co-created indicators. Key achievements during the visit include training of interviewers (not part of the community but speak and communicate in the main languages of the Bagassi population), collection of data with the organization of focus groups, and the analysis of the results from the focus groups. In Q1 2021, ACET produced and submitted a progress report to WUSC. Q2 2021 During Q2, ACET and the three country researchers finalized the Global Report, which is the main document that provides the findings and analysis of the data collected undertaken during the research cycle. We also produced three case studies, one per country. All produces have been submitted and approved by WUSC. The third and final pilot and research cycle is set to commence in August 2021. Q3 2021 During September and October, the country researchers each visited their communities in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Guinea respectively. Before each visit they drafted an action plan, and upon return they submitted a back to office approval. In October, ACET wrote and submitted the Global Report to WUSC for review. The Global report included 3 country case studies, drafted by the country researchers and reviewed by ACET. WUSC commenced the reviewing process in November. The project will close by the end of 2021. Q4 2021 During September and October, the country researchers each visited their communities in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Guinea respectively. Before each visit they drafted an action plan, and upon return they submitted a back to office approval. In October, ACET wrote and submitted the Global Report to WUSC for review. The Global report included 3 country case studies, drafted by the country researchers, and reviewed by ACET. WUSC commenced the reviewing process in November. The project officially closed in December 2021