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Community Investment: OMV-EP Guideline
Community Investment: OMV-EP Guideline
Guideline
OMV-EP Guideline
Community Investment
The requirements of this guideline are not stand-alone: they are the final part of an overall
community relations strategy that is described more fully in Community Relations, document
no HSEQ-HQ-11-01 latest revision.
2 Cross-references
Corporate Responsibility – Code of Conduct published by the corporate group of OMV AG,
January 2003
3 Management responsibilities
The country General Manager shall be responsible for implementing this guideline.
Where no country General Manager has been appointed, the Senior Vice President
Exploration and Production International shall be responsible for implementing this guideline.
4 Definitions
Project – Any physical activity that results from OMV oil and gas operations. It will cover the
normal phases: seismic, drilling, facilities and pipeline construction, facilities operation and
decommissioning (abandonment). However, a ‘project’ can also be defined as the work being
done in Vienna to assess business opportunities at the region or country entry stage;
relevant parts of these guidelines may be used for a social impact risk assessment.
Stakeholder dialogue - A process through which the views of interested stakeholders are
integrated into project decision-making. This dialogue can take the form of:
à Information dissemination: one-way flow of information;
à Consultation: two-way flow of information;
à Participation: shared control over decision making;
Indigenous Peoples1: People descended from the populations which inhabited a region at
the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of state boundaries. Indigenous
people self-identify themselves as having a social, cultural and economic condition that
distinguishes them from other sections of the national community. The status of indigenous
peoples is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws
and regulations.
Social Impact Assessment: a consultative and analytical process that aims to anticipate the
impacts of an activity on, and its interactions with, people and communities; identify
strategies to prevent, control and mitigate those that are considered to be adverse, while
enhancing benefits; and understand and respond to community and other stakeholder
concerns.
Social and Environmental Assessment: a consultative and analytical process that aims to
identify potential environmental and social impacts and issues; develop prevention, control,
mitigation and monitoring strategies; and understand and respond to community and other
stakeholder concerns.
Social Capital: is the term used to describe the mechanisms and attributes by which a
community interacts to utilise its social assets to the well being (development, enhancement
and benefit) of the community as a whole.
Least Developed Countries: these countries are designated as such by the United Nations
General Assembly. The current listing of these countries are available on the internet URL
http://esa.un.org/unpp/definition.html
1
This definition is drawn from the ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous Peoples.
5 Procedure
These guidelines (including Community Relations, document no HSEQ-HQ-11-01 latest
revision) aim to enable OMV to play a responsible role in the community whilst developing a
viable business operation by:
à Screening for social risks;
à Building mutual understanding between the community and OMV;
à Minimising negative impacts on the community;
à Forming partnerships with key individuals and organisations.
Individual managers need to be made responsible for this in each business or country
The overall process is shown in Figure 1 below and the sub-process relevant to community
investment described in Section 5.1.
Screen for
1 social risks Risk screen
(Document no
HSEQ-HQ-01-XX)
2 Assign
responsibility
Stakeholder All projects
dialogue
(Document no
HSEQ-HQ-01-XX)
3 Integrate into
operating Social and
practices environment
assessment
(Document no
HSEQ-HQ-01-XX)
4 Develop
procedures Only projects in
Community
and ‘least developed
Investment
reporting countries’
(Appendix A)
6 Record of Revisions
None.
APPENDIX A
A.1 Purpose
In all cases, before entering into any partnerships, the OMV Corporate Responsibility Group
should be consulted to establish if any international arrangements with NGOs already exist.
Pipeline construction à High short term impacts, low long term Compensation payments
impacts
à Potentially large numbers of people
affected
As a rule OMV operations should avoid cash as compensation for impacts. Monetary
compensation, although simple to provide, is often ineffective and is potentially divisive.
Particular care should be exercised when compensating for loss of livelihood (e.g. land,
fishing rights etc) where compensation should provide assistance towards developing
alternative sources of livelihood. Where financial compensation2 is most appropriate, national
recommendations should be followed. Where no national recommendations exist,
independent organisations such as the UN should be approached.
Any support towards establishing facilities or providing equipment, such as health centres
and schools, must be backed up by plans agreed with the beneficiaries and partners (e.g.
government agencies, NGOs) about how the operation of the facility and or maintenance of
equipment will be financed.
The following guidance refers mainly to the design and implementation of community
programmes.
2
In these cases amounts paid should be considered relative to local income levels.
Use OMV skills and resources most à Management training for e.g. local businesses, government
effectively to increase the social capital agencies, community groups, NGOs, etc
in the communities where OMV works
à Technology transfer activities
à Extend access to project infrastructure (water, electricity,
transport) to local communities
Build capacity of community to reduce à Support alternative sources of income, e.g. local business
dependency on OMV development
à Support local supply chain
General guidance from United Nations suggests that, in order of priority, community
investment should target:
à Water supply (e.g. improving the accessibility and quality of drinking water)
à Basic community health (e.g. immunisation programs)
à Education (e.g. schools for juveniles)
It is recommended that this budget maintains a three year time horizon. For guidance it is
recommended that this budget should be between 0.5% and 1% of net income after tax for
full field development projects depending on the level of potential impact to communities.
The group should be formally established and roles and responsibilities defined, for example
through a memorandum of agreement.
3
Some countries have complex social/political relationships and factors to consider are: tribal
loyalties, ethnic/religious structures, local language/dialect variations.