Tools & Guides
In this page, using the filters on your left, you can find toolkits, handbooks and guides on the following topics:
- community-led development and community mobilization/organizing
- legal and accountability mechanisms
- Indigenous Peoples and free, prior and informed consent
- monitoring and impact assessment
- extractive industries; forests and dams; forced displacement
- gender and development finance
- human rights defenders
- advocacy guides on specific DFIs, such as ADB, AfDB, IFC, World Bank, EBRD, EIB, Chinese finance
- communications and campaigns strategies
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A Community-Based Guide for Monitoring Impacts of Oil and Gas Activities on the Environment (2011)
Greenwatch Uganda – This guide is intended for local communities and community-based organizations that are working to monitor the effects of oil and gas development activities on the environment. The guide provides information about the key actors in the Ugandan oil and gas exploration industry, environmental issues that arise and the best way of monitoring and managing such impacts, including EIAs, environment restoration orders, access to information, access to justice, mitigation and waste management.
Behind the Scenes of Extractives: Money, Power & Community Resistance (2021)
JASS and Count Me In! Consortium – This tookit is dedicated to women land defenders confronting unwanted and damaging extractive projects. It contains six popular education modules on ‘Investment chains in extractives projects’ and it is based on the contents of the research report ‘Behind the scenes of extractive industry: critical insights from Honduras, Indonesia and Zimbabwe’ . Particular attention is paid to investors and behind-the-scenes enablers of extractive projects, with the aim of identifying and rating possible pressure points that activists could focus their efforts on.
Forest Peoples Programme Toolkits for Indigenous Peoples and local communities
Forest Peoples Programme has developed a series of toolkits for Indigenous Peoples and local communities in different countries, that provide useful information on FPIC and the international, regional and national mechanisms they can use in order to claim their rights and protect their lands, territories and natural resources.
- Toolkits and guides on free, prior and informed consent (English, French, Spanish, Bahasa, Nepali, Arabic) + FPIC Posters (French, Kikongo, Lingala or Swahili)
- Participatory Mapping: guidelines for communities and organisations (English, French)
- Liberia FPIC Training Materials: ‘Communities in the Driving Seat’ (English)
- Toolkit on the Inter-American human rights system for indigenous women (English, Spanish)
- Toolkit on Indigenous women’s rights in Africa (English, French)
- Realizing Indigenous Women’s Rights: CEDAW and Indigenous Women – published by the Asian Indigenous Women’s Network (AIWN), Tebtebba Foundation and the Forest Peoples Programme (English)
- Indigenous Women of the Americas – Methodological and conceptual guidelines to confront situations of multiple discrimination (English, Spanish)
- Cameroun: Guide sur la gestion des ressources naturelles (French)
- Cameroun matériels de formation sur le CLIP : « les communautés aux commandes » (French)
- Guide du parajuriste communautaire environnemental Congolais (French)
- Protection of the right to land, territory and natural resources in regional and international law in Africa: A Toolkit for NGOs in the Democratic Republic of Congo (French)
Natural Resource Contracts: A Practical Guide (2013)
Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide – This toolkit aims to help advocates understand natural resource contracts by using contract excerpts and information from case studies. The guide also explains topics that are commonly addressed in natural resource contracts and provides suggestions for improving vague or unfavorable contracts.
Mining and Communities: Supporting human rights-based development in the context of industrial mining in Guinea (2015)
American Bar Association (ABA) – This guide supports human rights – based development in the context of industrial mining in Guinea. The guide highlights what the community needs to know about mining, its impacts, and how to protect their rights.
Guide for Evaluating Mining Project Environmental Impact Assessments (2010)
ELAW – This guide is designed to assist grassroots advocates and communities to understand mining Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), identify flaws in mining project plans, convince decision-makers to reject ill-conceived mining projects, and explore ways that proposed mining projects could be made socially and environmentally acceptable.
Protecting Your Community Against Mining Companies and Other Extractive Industries: A Guide for Community Organizers (2009)
Global Response – This guide describes aspects of the mining process, the dangers you and your community face when mining companies seek to operate in your community, and the many ways you can fight back.