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Empowering the indigenous peoples’ community towards responsible mining

Bantay Kita

Project theme Citizen engagement and voice  Citizen-generated data  Digital mapping  Hard-to-reach citizens  Inclusive governance  Intermediaries  Technologies for transparency and accountability 



Project type Innovation 



Country The Philippines 



Support £38,455.61



Country Engagement Developer Vivien Suerte-Cortez



“Indigenous peoples are often left unaware of the potential risks and costs of allowing mining activities in their ancestral lands; they are often talked into only seeing the positive economic benefits of mining.” — Bantay Kita

22.2%

difference between contracted royalties and actual royalties

2nd

country in the world with most killings of environmental activists (The Philippines)

Start date
October 2016 End date
September 2017
Period: 12 months

Issue

Mining companies operating within the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples in the Philippines are required to pay them royalties. This requirement is laid down in community-based agreements (CBAs).

But there is no mechanism by which indigenous peoples can monitor mining companies’ compliance with the CBAs, and they have no way of knowing if they are receiving correct royalty payments.

Project

Bantay Kita aims to address the problem by improving the capacity of indigenous people to monitor mining companies’ operations. They are facilitating the development of a monitoring tool on company operations, royalty payments and agreements, and working to enhance knowledge management.

The project will be delivered through engagement with an indigenous community, a local CSO, an academic institute, and Making All Voices Count project Map the Philippines.

As well as the monitoring tool, the project is developing a set of guiding principles and advocacy materials for indigenous peoples to develop other such tools and mechanisms for transparency and accountable royalty management processes. It is also carrying out spatial monitoring of mining concessions using coordinate plotting and high-resolution mapping.

Related projects

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Partner

Bantay Kita is a coalition of CSOs advocating for transparency and accountability in the extractive industry, based in Quezon City. Their activities focus on networking with different actors and using research as a basis for monitoring, policy advocacy and capacity building. Bantay Kita has also developed a monitoring tool for all stages of the mining process which tracks the availability of information mandated by law.

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