Community Development Agreements

At a Glance
  • Community development agreements (CDAs) are made between extractive companies and the communities affected by their operations.
  • CDAs range in their complexity and strength. The most comprehensive are similar to contracts and have formal complaint mechanisms.
  • CDAs' key advantage over government regulations is that they are context-specific: most apply to only one site of operations.

Case Studies

Key Resources

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Let's Make a Deal? Learning from Extractive Industry Negotiations with Indigenous Peoples

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

The first 36 minutes of this webinar reviews key aspects in negotiating agreements with Indigenous peoples. The remaining time explores ...

Mining Community Development Agreements: Source Book

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

The aim of this handbook is to support strategic and collaborative community development planning by governments, companies, civil society, ...

Benchmarking Leading Practice in Aboriginal Business Procurement in the Extractive Resource Sector

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This guide examines leading practice in Aboriginal business procurement in the extractives sector in Australia. The resource is designed to ...

Partnerships in Procurement: Understanding Aboriginal Business Engagement in the Canadian Mining Industry

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This research explores current procurement opportunities for Aboriginal suppliers in the mining industry in Canada. It documents ways in ...

Impact and Benefit Agreements and Northern Resource Governance: What We Know and What We Still Need to Figure Out

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This chapter reviews Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) in northern Canada to highlight what is known about IBAs and identify knowledge ...

Why Agreements Matter

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This resource provides guidance on integrating agreements into communities and social performance. Rio Tinto is used as an example to ...

Agreement-Making with Indigenous Groups: Oil and Gas Development in Australia

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

The purpose of this document is to provide relevant background information, reference material, analysis of leading practices, and case ...

IBA Community Toolkit: Negotiation and Implementation of Impact and Benefit Agreements

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This toolkit provides practical information on the negotiation process for Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs), with a focus on private ...

Emerging Practices in Community Development Agreements

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Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This resource reviews existing research on community development agreements (CDAs), as well as available agreements from the extractive ...

Partnerships in Procurement: Understanding Aboriginal Business Engagement in the Canadian Mining Industry

This resource is found in

Backward Linkages (Supplying Extractives) Local Procurement Policies, Agreements, and Requirements Community Development Agreements

This research explores current procurement opportunities for Aboriginal suppliers in the mining industry in Canada. It documents ways in ...

Topic Briefing

Local procurement in the extractive sector is increasingly regulated throughh what are generally referred to as community development agreements (CDAs). These are arrangements made between extractive companies and the communities affected by their operations. They are known by other names as well: impact benefit agreements (IBAs) in Canada, indigenous land use agreements (ILUAs) in Australia, and mining cooperation agreements (MCAs) in Mongolia. The first such agreements were made between extractive companies and indigenous communities in Australia and in Canada. The mining company Rio Tinto concluded its first CDA in 1995 in Australia, and as of 2016 had over 40 CDAs across its operations.[1]

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CDAs range from a broad set of principles laid out in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to complex and comprehensive agreements that are similar to contracts and have formal complaint mechanisms. In some cases, such as Mongolia for mining, having an agreement is a technical requirement to start operations. In other cases, like many provinces in Canada, a CDA is not formally required, though a proposed project is not likely to be approved without such an agreement.

CDAs often include provisions for a number of aspects of extractive operations, including local procurement, with a focus on either supply or demand. Common approaches to the subject mirror that seen in regulations and contracts. One advantage of CDAs over national regulations is that they are generally made for only one specific site (or, in some  cases, a cluster of extractives industry sites). This allows tailored, context-specific approaches to local procurement that are not possible in a nationwide regulation. Because of the confidential nature of CDAs, their effectiveness in driving local procurement has not been researched. 

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[1] Jo-Anne Everingham et al., Why Agreements Matter (Victoria, Australia and London, UK: Rio Tinto, 2016), 2, 9.