The challenge.
Divisions over natural resources are deep and growing.
Societal and geopolitical conflicts and divisions around natural resources are growing. Huge investments in minerals, energy, water and other resources will be needed in the years ahead. But the context for these investments and for existing resources is increasingly fraught.
Increasing geopolitical competition, growing expectations for national development, local divisions and opposition, and the effects of climate change, are all generating tensions between different groups. These could become worse in the years ahead.
Short-term, adversarial mindsets, low levels of trust, and limited understanding of the issues, obscure the opportunities for cooperation around sustainable resource use and development. New thinking will be needed to help re-build trust, cultivate shared understanding and generate collaborative approaches to balance seemingly divergent needs.
Conflict over resources occurs in many different forms…
Divisions can arise at global, national and local levels, and involving different groups.
Resource Resolutions’ approach spans five main types of resource-related division and conflict:
1. Community-company: disagreements between resource companies and local communities and/or NGOs over a natural resource project or operation.
2. Company-government: Disagreements and tensions between companies and host governments at asset- or corporate-level (e.g., over fiscal terms, legal, permitting or sustainability issues, etc).
3. Geopolitical: Competition, misalignment and conflict between governments over access to or control over specific natural resource assets or over global raw material supply chains.
4. Inter-communal or civil conflict: Tensions and violence between or within communities or state groups over access to a resource or an associated benefit.
5. Divergent worldviews: Disagreements between companies, governments and / or stakeholders over cross-cutting issues relevant to resources (e.g., climate change, human rights, etc).
…and such conflicts occur across a wide range of resource sectors.
Resource Resolutions’ approach is designed to span minerals, energy, water, and other natural resource assets.
Resource Resolutions 