GNAN KOUASSI Benjamin Junior

Targeted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) :

• ODD 12 Responsible consumption and production (sustainable mining industry)
• ODD 15 Life on Earth (environmental protection)
• ODD 16 Peace, justice and effective institutions (avoidance of community mining conflicts at local, national or continental level)

Start date: November 2020
Anticipated date of thesis defense: 2027
ORCID profile: 0009-0006-1646-5445

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Thesis project title: The social fabric of the operationalization of mining CSR in an "agricultural mining territory" in Côte d'Ivoire.

Scientific project summary: Our research is a socio-anthropological critique of the process of social manufacture and collective governance of mining CSR projects aimed at farmers impacted by mining operations.

Indeed, in the Bonikro "mining agricultural territory", the problem of mining CSR consists less locally in its rejection of introduction, than in its level of operationalization and/or form of implementation (KOUADIO, N., 2018 and YOBOUE, C., 2021).

By way of hypothesis, we claim that a mining CSR project, struggling to take shape locally, diverges in its indicators of success from social determinisms and collective commons.

Do farmers affected by the mine (GNAN-KOUASSI, B., 2020) have the opportunity to participate in the development and implementation of CSR projects, particularly initiatives aimed at restoring or reorganizing agricultural land use? What is the stakeholder map? How is the CSR project developed and its social performance factors defined? Finally, what impact does the project's level of social satisfaction have on the mine's continued legal operation?

Thus, our scientific objective is to identify the mechanisms by which mining societal action is manufactured, as well as related controversies, and to grasp the methods used to assess the "social acceptance" (BATELLIER, P., 2012) of CSR projects, which are sometimes the subject of extra-financial reporting by Ivorian mining companies (EITI 2023). Ultimately, this work will facilitate the understanding of manufacturing processes, the construction of social impact monitoring indicators and the socialization of mining CSR projects.

Summary of results : The mapping of CSR players in agricultural and mining areas reveals a number of controversies in terms of social representations linked to the concept of social responsibility (CSR), its mechanisms for creating social projects and the ways in which third parties are designated.

Operationalized CSR is socially understood as all actions with a social or environmental and economic scope, which are built outside the mine's wage (internal legal CSR) or compensation (external legal CSR) space.

Although provided for in the 2014 Ivorian mining code, the frameworks for the manufacture of CSR projects are mostly influenced by state representatives via the local mining development committees, with the exception of the manufacturing spaces for the mine's essentially philanthropic actions, run mainly by the community relations department, with input from impacted farmers. In practice, the mining industry tries to involve them on a domestic or cooperative scale. First, farming communities are involved at the outset in proposing agricultural rehabilitation projects, then at the interface for improving the mine's budgetary decision, and land operationalization. Finally, farmers are called back to the fence to express their social satisfactions.

At this stage, reporting on social performance indicators is still dependent on EITI indicators and, to a lesser extent, on the European Union Commission's CSRD.