Introduction
For over 20 years, Oxfam’s Extractive Industries Global Program has partnered with communities impacted by oil, gas and mining projects and held powerful actors accountable for their human rights abuses and environmental harm. With the imperative of a phase out of fossil investments as the world embraces clean energy, we are supporting the governance of a sector in transition, balancing the ongoing need for transparency and accountability with the protection of human rights and environmental rights. Within this context, we continue to strengthen disclosure regimes, demand fair distribution of extractive revenues, and call out corruption. At the same time, as demand increases for minerals needed for the build-out of renewable energy technologies, we are increasingly advocating for a just transition to clean energy, highlighting the crucial role of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) in helping communities defend their lands and livelihoods, and elevating their demands for climate justice around the world.
Pictured: Meeting of Turkana people in Lokichar, Kenya. Oil extraction is planned to start on their land. Oxfam worked with local partners to successfully negotiate with the National Land Commission for the compensation of over 500 families who were recently impacted by oil activities in the Lokichar Basin. Photo: Roberto Stefani / Oxfam
With over 50 staff members working across 26 countries and supporting a network of local partners and frontline communities, Oxfam’s Extractive Industries Global Program continues to deepen and amplify our global impact. Our work is supported by individual Oxfam contributors, foundations, and government donors. We are deeply thankful for the continued support of the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Climate and Land Use Alliance, as well as the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the Danish International Development Agency, and the European Union.
The accomplishments reflected in this program report are the result of dedicated contributions from diverse activists, civil society leaders, communities, and Oxfam staff members—all championing a world shaped by natural resource justice. Our work would not be possible without the relentless commitment of our partners who develop real solutions, often in hostile contexts and shrinking civic spaces, and challenge powerful and entrenched interests to influence legislative wins and support communities in defense of their rights.
Pictured: Actress Itziar Ituño and her rock band posing with Indigenous leaders to promote the Peruvian campaigns for a healthy Amazon.
Thematic areas of work
Human rights and communities
As corporate power and vested interests prevent affected people from exercising their right to decide over oil, gas and mining projects and accessing remedy for the harms from extraction, Oxfam is working with communities to elevate their demands for justice. Across Central America, we are supporting Indigenous and frontline communities' challenge to metal mining and calls for meaningful consultation in deeply threatening contexts. In areas where oil, gas, and mining are displacing people, like along the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), we continue to strengthen community reporting systems to capture human rights and environmental abuses - and use this information to hold companies accountable.
As efforts to decarbonize are driving a global scramble for minerals, we are evaluating the corporate policies of the top mining companies involved in the production and exploration of lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and copper: all minerals that are essential for energy storage. We are focusing on the policies that support community consultation and FPIC processes, with the understanding that companies that adopt and uphold clear and unequivocal policy commitments to respect FPIC are more likely to contribute to positive outcomes in the countries where they operate. At the same time, we are holding US companies accountable to the highest human rights and environmental standards as the US moves to clean energy and expands its need for transition minerals.
Economic and accountable governance
Oxfam believes that citizens have a right to know the terms under which natural resources are developed and sold. Disclosure and transparency of extractive industry data can be used by citizens and civil society organizations to demand fairer taxation schemes and proper collection and management of extractives revenues, and to improve opportunities to participate in value chains. This year, extractive companies Hess and Newmont led the way in disclosing their country-by-country profits, employment, and tax data in line with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) that Oxfam has been championing. Oxfam challenged Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Exxon Mobil to follow suit through a shareholder resolution contesting their secretive tax practices.
[The objective is] to interrogate the spending data going from the petroleum sector to agriculture and education, to understand how efficient the expenditure has been and, most importantly, how inclusive it has been in targeting minority groups.
- Francis Agbere, Just Economies Program Manager at Oxfam Ghana
Pictured: Oxfam staff members review an oil revenue board in Shama, Ghana. Photo: Andrew Bogrand / Oxfam
The International Council on Mining and Metals followed suit by requiring both contract disclosure and country-by-country reporting for its member companies, emphasizing the importance of people’s right to know and right to decide about the natural resource extraction taking place in their backyards. We also worked with allies to encourage the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to require that member companies comply with its Company Expectations. Companies must now publicly acknowledge and publish their support for national legislation that aligns with the EITI standards, ensuring that they won’t act against efforts to promote transparency and accountability.
Gender justice
To address the highly gendered impacts of extractive industries, which disproportionately undermine women’s rights and interests, Oxfam places women at the center of natural resource justice. Our collective efforts have mobilized women’s rights organizations and amplified community demands at the intersection of gender justice, extractives, and the transition to renewable energy. In Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal, we brought women’s rights issues into public debate, launching campaigns to demand that 30 percent of national mining revenues due to host communities be earmarked for women-prioritized programs and services.
In Zambia, Peru, and Vietnam, we launched Gender Action Learning processes among partners. Now in its third phase, the project seeks to bridge women’s rights and extractive industry fiscal accountability agendas. We further used our convening power to drive a campaign for strengthening the EITI’s gender responsiveness in their Company Expectations and submitted a public letter outlining civil society recommendations. We expect the EITI to vote to incorporate the gender provisions in June 2023.
Environmental and climate justice
With the clear need to shift away from fossil fuels to avoid the greatest impacts of climate change, we are working with civil society, communities, and governments to implement projects and regulations that protect air, water, and land resources. In the US, we continue to advocate for environmental protections and regulations such as the disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions from extractive companies. We are engaging across US government agencies to push for stronger human rights safeguards for the investments the US is making into transition mineral supply chains. We also advocate for the end of costly and dangerous subsidies to the US oil and gas industry.
In Peru, we continue to push Pluspetrol to uphold their environmental remediation responsibilities in Oil Block 192, while in Ghana and Honduras we are working with local volunteers to document pollution levels brought about by extractive activities and hold governments to account.
Civic space and human rights defenders
Civic space continued to be restricted in many parts of the world, endangering activists and civil society organizations standing up to extractive activity. Oxfam in Zimbabwe, along with the US and EU governments, raised awareness about the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill that would consolidate power in Zimbabwe’s Executive to revoke operational licenses of civil society organizations deemed to be “vulnerable” to terrorism. Although the bill is still being considered by parliament, its progress has faced significant delays thanks to domestic and international actors who have spoken out forcefully against it.
A human rights defenders’ policy. This is a smart and essential idea—I’d really like to see this from Total.
- Maxwell Atuhura, Ugandan Human Rights Defender
In Uganda, we influenced the government's Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations to restore the operational licenses of 22 of the 54 civil society organizations (CSO) suspended on technicalities. In response to regressive CSO legislation passed in Central America, Oxfam welcomed the approach that the Biden administration is taking, condemning the legislation and directing 25 percent of the US government assistance to local development partners.
Our approach
Oxfam takes a multi-pronged approach to influencing the extractives industries sector; we adapt our strategies and practices to different contexts, needs, interests and capabilities of communities and organizations with whom we partner. Core to our work is a focus on challenging power and seeking both systemic and structural change locally and globally.
Investor advocacy
Oxfam has strengthened its extractive industry investor advocacy in defense of communities hosting major extractive industries projects in Africa and Southeast Asia. These campaigns to defend frontline communities, drive corporate accountability, and keep resource revenues out of the wrong hands have proven to be essential steps in ending the injustice of poverty. In the past two years, Oxfam has mobilized individual investors and pensions funds—representing trillions of dollars in assets—to sign on to a letter directed to TotalEnergies in defense of human rights, while making the business case for stopping revenues from reaching abusive regimes. Oxfam highlighted the financial, legal, and reputational risks for investors who remained exposed to extractive operations in authoritarian and conflict environments, championed successful civil society divestment campaigns, and expanded partnerships within the business and human rights community.
Pictured: United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Photo: Tada Images
Media advocacy
This year we received climate campaigning support from the Ford Foundation to develop an innovative collaboration with media outlets, film festivals, and communities navigating resource extraction, agribusiness expansion, and territorial devastation. Through this collaboration, we are elevating communities’ demands for climate justice and promoting the important role that they play in conservation, mitigation, and adaptation efforts. In advance of COP27, the UN’s Climate Summit, we supported dozens of African climate groups demanding financing for loss and damage from rich countries. Their voices were heard: the UN pledged to develop a specific fund for countries experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
Pictured: An Oxfam partner in Ghana created “Oil Money TV” to document how oil revenues are spent in the county. Photo: Chris Hufstader / Oxfam
Local-to-global advocacy
Oxfam leverages our global networks and global campaigning, our field-based staff, and our deeply rooted relationships with local partners to drive change at local, national, and global levels. We focus on emblematic extractive industry projects and their local impacts to demonstrate why broader policy change is needed. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we supported the anti-corruption coalition Le Congo N’Est Pas à Vendre (The Congo Is Not for Sale) in continuing to expose corrupt mining deals by notorious businessman Dan Gertler that have cost DRC billions in lost revenue. Gertler was sanctioned in 2017 by the US government under the Global Magnitsky Act for having engaged corrupt Congolese politicians to obtain underpriced mining assets.
Pictured: A mining and community activist in Peak Village, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. Photo: Andrew Bogrand / Oxfam
Research
Oxfam uses research strategically to bring attention to topics of importance in the sector, foster debate, and elevate the voices of communities on the front lines of extraction. Most importantly, we use our research to inform campaigns and provide evidence to hold governments, companies, and other power brokers accountable to communities. This year, we produced research documenting the crucial role that transparency and accountability play in oil governance, highlighting environmental and human rights abuses, exposing failed tax schemes and subsidies, and distilling lessons around FPIC.
Pictured: Launch of West Africa Loss and Damage report at the African Climate Caravan kickoff in Dakar, Senegal. Photo: Roberto Stefani / Oxfam
Research highlights
- In 12 Guilty Fogeys, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, and BailoutWatch shone a light on US$86 billion worth of offshore tax loopholes benefiting Big Oil. The report provides a history and potential cost of these subsidies, which are embedded in the tax code and are of special importance to the current energy transition debates.
- In Peru, Oxfam published the report La Sombra de los Hidrocarburos (The Shadow of Hydrocarbons) shedding light on the more than 1,000 spills in the country since 1997—brought about mostly by companies’ irresponsible management of infrastructure. The report was widely disseminated and picked up by the New York Times.
- In a push for improved sector-wide transparency, Oxfam disseminated the report Auditing the Auditor: Examining the Role of Supreme Audit Institutions in Auditing the Extractive Industry in Africa that brought to light the ineffectiveness of supreme audit institutions in selected countries and their inability to audit extractive companies due, in part, to complicated government regulations restricting their mandate.
- Oxfam Canada and Parkland Institute published the report Not Well Spent exposing how the Canadian government spent more than CAD $1 billion in support of the oil and gas sector at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and examining who benefited from the public funds.
- Oxfam launched the report Potential Corporate Tax Avoidance in Zambia’s Mining Sector? focused on Glencore and Mopani Copper Mines as examples of potential corporate tax avoidance. The report estimates that Zambia should have collected up to US$102 million per year in income taxes from Mopani, more than half of Zambia’s national water supply and sanitation budget for 2020.
- In Vietnam, Oxfam contributed to the report Transparency Promotion in the Oil and Gas Sector that provided recommendations for greater transparency and accountability in negotiation and contract processes in the wake of revisions to the country’s Petroleum Law.
- Oxfam commissioned the Stockholm Environmental Institute’s report, How Subsidies Aided the US Shale Oil and Gas Boom, that points to the federal government subsidizing the oil industry in the form of tax breaks to the tune of US$20 billion per year over the last two decades.
- Oxfam published the report Negotiating Consent that distills lessons from our work defending community consent in Peru. Drawing on research published by our partners CooperAcción, Organización Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas (ONAMIAP), and Pueblos Indígenas Amazónicos Unidos en Defensa de Sus Territorios (PUINAMUDT), the report contributes to collective thinking on ways to improve the implementation of FPIC processes in geographies across the world.
- Oxfam’s partner in Colombia, Asociación Centro Nacional Salud, Ambiente y Trabajo (CENSAT), published Energias para la Transición (Energies for the Transition), a compilation of stories and reflections from Latin America on the articulation of capitalism, patriarchy, and racism as these relate to extractive activity. The report elevates the voices of environmental movements, civil society organizations, artists, and academia to explore a more just energy future.
OXfam's Natural Resource Justice Programs Around the World
Africa
Building on our successful one percent campaign that established a local development mining fund in Burkina Faso, Oxfam and partners expanded community participation in oversight committees that work with local governments to administer this fund for the delivery of health, education, and sanitation services. Oversight committees have also improved tax collection, as communities gain a better understanding of the importance of fiscal responsibility for local development.
Throughout this project Oxfam has opened the eyes of the blind and awakened those who were sleeping. Before, we did not know that we could hold the authorities to account.
- A community activist in Burkina Faso
In Ghana, Oxfam continues to replicate and expand its oil revenue management toolkit based on the Shama model (1), named after an oil-producing region in Ghana where citizens have successfully advocated for transparent and accountable distribution and spending of oil revenues. The subnational government in Shama is further considering a development fund with revenues from quarry activities that will be shared with host communities and replicated nationally. Furthering the work on transparency and inclusion, Oxfam continues to organize dialogues with the Ghana EITI (GHEITI) on local standards for women and the blind community. Oxfam and partners are also supporting community grievances stemming from expansion of mining projects in Western Ghana.
In Kenya, Oxfam worked with a local partner to successfully negotiate with the National Land Commission for the compensation of over 500 families who were recently impacted by oil activities in the Lokichar Basin, Turkana. Oxfam continued to advocate for transparency and accountability in the implementation of the Petroleum Act (2) and the Community Land Act (3), raising awareness among communities and training local government officials on the implementation of these regulations.
In response to the armed conflict in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique, Oxfam brought together civil society organizations, journalists, media, and academics to engage on the oil and gas and mining sectors' complicity in fueling unrest. Oxfam also supported the launch of the Center for Public Integrity’s Extractive Industry Transparency Index in Cabo Delgado. The index links the conflict with transparency issues in the extractives sector, ranking mining and oil companies on their practices on information disclosure and fiscal, social, and environmental accountability. Oxfam and partners also continue to support community grievances stemming from gas operations in Inhambane.
In Nigeria, Oxfam contributed to discussions on the drafting of the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021 and its subsequent operationalization. The legislation provides a framework for the establishment of a host community development trust fund that is meant to deliver three percent of oil revenues directly to host communities for local development. Oxfam has mobilized communities around this new law and has secured commitments from the Petroleum Revenue Commission to ensure the speedy establishment of the fund. Oxfam will also work to ensure gender just and equitable community participation in the use of the funds.
In Senegal, Oxfam supported women in advocating for their participation in decisions over the utilization of mining revenues for community development. Oxfam further coordinated civil society demands for Senegal’s draft law governing the management of oil and gas revenues, obtaining a commitment from the President of the Republic to hold the Ministry of Petroleum and Energies accountable for incorporating these demands into the final text. In the lead-up to COP27, we also hosted an international “African Climate Caravan” in Dakar, highlighting local demands, the risk of extraction, and the need for a loss and damage fund at COP27 to support frontline communities across the country.
In Tanzania, Oxfam and partners supported over 100 community members, many of them women, along the route of East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline to demand their legal right to information, and trained them to monitor extractive activity. With Oxfam support, community monitors (dubbed locally as animators) in Lindi and Mtwara campaigned for the establishment of village committees to oversee community development projects, such as schools, funded through extractive revenues by holding companies accountable to their social responsibility commitments.
Becoming an animator from Songosongo ward has given me confidence, and I know how to express myself to the community and to different leaders such as LGAs [local government authorities] from Kilwa District Council, something which I could not do previously. I can now work with fellow community members and press on the importance of community participation in village meetings.
- Kilwa Miss Khadija, Songosongo animator
Pictured: Kilwa Miss Khadija speaking at community meeting. Photo: Oxfam in Tanzania
In South Africa, Oxfam and partners celebrated a major legal win when a high court halted Shell’s offshore oil and gas exploration in Eastern Cape, citing illegally issued licenses, inadequate community consultation, and a lack of consideration of environmental and livelihood impacts. The ruling follows a protracted legal challenge to offshore oil and gas and sets a precedent for legal protection of FPIC, providing a rallying point for coastal communities, climate activists, and human rights defenders. Shell is disputing the court’s decision.
This is not the end of the fight, there is still a long way to go as Shell might appeal. Even if they don’t appeal, the fight continues and we are going to continue ensuring that these processes are done in such a way that protects human rights and the planet. The economic recession we are facing will push more private companies to come and destroy the planet and displace many communities
- Nonhle Mbuthuma, the Amadiba Crisis Committee
Pictured: wild coast activists. Photo: Oxfam South Africa
In Uganda, Oxfam has been advocating for protections of communities impacted by the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), whilst calling for transparency in the oil sector, and the proper management of petroleum revenues. By elevating community grievances, Oxfam and partners secured a commitment from pipeline operator TotalEnergies and from the Ugandan Petroleum Authority for a 30 percent increase in compensation to communities that will be displaced by the pipeline, helping to mitigate losses from two years of project stalling. The Petroleum Authority further pledged to foster local engagement over fiscal issues and improve local revenue management capacity. TotalEnergies in Uganda also issued a supportive statement on human rights defenders in the country, aligned with Oxfam’s recommendations.
Compensation for economic displacement resulting from land acquisition should be made promptly in order to minimize adverse impacts on the income streams of those who are displaced.
- Performance Standard 9, International Finance Corporation
Pictured: A chalkboard in a school for children resettled from oil development in Uganda. Photo: Andrew Bogrand / Oxfam
In Zambia, in response to the government’s reform of the mining sector and the intensification of mining activity, Oxfam facilitated discussions between the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development and mining-affected communities. Communities shared grievances with the compensation and resettlement processes, and emphasized the need for strengthened health, safety, and human rights protections.
In Zimbabwe, Oxfam's work has resulted in the integration of global standards on extractive industry data disclosure in the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange disclosure regulations. Oxfam was instrumental in encouraging parliamentarians to adopt sustainability reporting guidelines, including disclosures of taxes paid by mining companies. This achievement is reflective of Oxfam's ability to hold the sector to account through a balanced combination of advocacy, research, and meaningful relationship building.
Americas
In Canada, Oxfam facilitated the testimony of a prominent Peruvian human rights defender before the Canadian parliament. Highlighting the devastating impacts of a Canadian oil and gas company on Indigenous communities in the Amazon, she recommended that the government strengthen the office of the Ombudsperson on Responsible Enterprise to better serve communities affected by Canadian extractive sector companies abroad. Oxfam and coalition partners launched a public advocacy campaign, Human Rights: Non-Negotiable, calling on the Canadian government to adopt legislation requiring mandatory human rights due diligence by Canadian companies. Oxfam Canada also promoted efforts to integrate gender-based analysis (GBA+) into the impact assessment of major resource projects.
Oxfam in Colombia supported Indigenous and Afro-Colombian women and farmers' organizations in their defense of territorial and cultural rights. We have worked with communities to make visible the impacts of mining and supported the integration of a climate-just agenda, advancing the values and ancestral vision of Amazonian peoples.
Oxfam in Guatemala shared the successful experience of its communal water monitoring initiative with mining-affected Indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. Since 2019, Xinca youth have been operating these laboratories, documenting levels of arsenic and heavy metals in water sources and educating communities on the impacts of mining, thus supporting community demands for more responsible practices. The exchange strengthened networks of Indigenous peoples in the defense of their territory and promoted South-South cooperation in resistance to extractive activity.
In Honduras, Oxfam and allies continue to contribute to the Territories at Risk Geoportal that maps mining concessions and hydropower projects across the country and documents their contribution to state coffers. The information in the portal has effectively promoted transparency and accountability within the sector and has been used as evidence in emblematic cases in the country’s justice system. In collaboration with academics, civil society, and deputies within the national congress, Oxfam elevated the demands of Indigenous peoples as the Honduran Executive drafts the country’s Consultation Law, asking that any new legislation respect international standards and promote the right to self-determination of Indigenous communities.
In Mexico, strategic litigation and public mobilization campaigns stopped the expansion of Minera Cuzcatlán (a subsidiary of Fortuna Silver Mines), located on Indigenous Zapotec lands in Oaxaca. Evidence from Oxfam’s partners on the impacts of mining on nearby communities contributed to the decision of the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources to not grant a permit for more than 70 mining facilities and infrastructure projects that the mining company had been developing without a permit. The Secretariat also rejected the results of the company's environmental impact assessment.
With Oxfam’s support, Indigenous federations in Peru reached an agreement with the government regarding PetroPeru’s 30-year contract extension of Oil Block 192 - the country's oldest oil project, and resulting in an important precedent for community consultation processes in the country. Indigenous peoples secured contract modifications, bolstering key social and economic gains, as well as protections for their collective rights and commitments to environmental remediation. Following years of unwavering local-to-global advocacy efforts, the Peruvian Congress passed a budget of $13 million for the Ministry of Health and regional governments to diagnose and redress health issues of populations affected by heavy metals contamination from extractive activity.
Asia
In coalition with Indigenous and women’s rights organizations, Oxfam's South East Asia regional program influenced the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to pay special attention to Indigenous populations, and particularly Indigenous women, in consultation and negotiations over ADB-funded projects. Its new safeguarding policy draft emphasizes the importance of meaningful consultation processes and collective decision-making guided by FPIC principles; calls for project impact assessments and gender-sensitive analysis on the differentiated impacts of ADB projects on women and vulnerable populations; and sets up gender-responsive and transparent grievance mechanisms. Oxfam in Cambodia and partners further mobilized with Indigenous organizations to demand for better consultation and recognition of Indigenous rights in response to amendments to the Law on Forestry and Protected Areas.
I am concerned about the next generation. There is no evidence that companies or the government will take care of the environment.
- Chhav Vom, an activist in Peak Village, Cambodia
Pictured: Chhav Vom is pushing a local mining operation to improve its environmental footprint. Photo: Andrew Bogrand / Oxfam
In Timor Leste, Oxfam and partners advocated for the government to diversify the economy away from petroleum extraction. We secured targeted investments in agriculture and related sectors as reflected in the 2022 general budget, with significant increases in investments by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries directed to young farmers.
In Vietnam, in an effort to highlight the realities of women in mining, Oxfam launched a social media campaign “Extractive Industries Are Only for Men?” that reached over 10,000 people. Curated stories of women in mining informed recommendations for phasing out toxic chemicals and improvement of waste management practices at the UN Conference of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions in 2021 and 2022. The aim is to have these recommendations embedded in the International Monitoring Plan for the implementation of environmental conventions and protocols.
More information
For more information, see: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/natural-resource-justice/
Pictured on main title banner: A chrome miner near in Zviashavane, Zimbabwe. Photo: Andrew Bogrand / Oxfam
Footnotes
(1) This approach has now been branded the Shama model. The model is built around the four dimensions of social accountability: participation, transparency, social monitoring/audits, and feedback mechanisms. Using these dimensions of social accountability, the model developed a medium-term plan, used accountability notice boards, and organized yearly People’s Forums.
(2) The Petroleum Act governs oil exploration and production.
(3) The Community Land Act provides a framework for the registration of individually owned and communally held lands.