We continue to maintain a strong commitment to expanding our community affairs activities. We expect our activities to grow as we implement our formal community dialogue and engagement plans at each operation and learn more about the needs and priorities of our communities, and consider those needs and priorities as we establish community development strategies.

Inmet’s operations bring many socioeconomic benefits to the communities where we operate. We employ many local workers, providing wages and benefits comparable or better than local standards, and offering training and advancement opportunities. We contribute substantially to the tax base of each community, and we contribute to local charities, infrastructure projects and community improvement initiatives.

Our community affairs activities continued to expand in 2008. We selected the Socio-Economic Assessment Toolbox (SEAT) as a way to bring more focus on our understanding of our communities and our role within them. SEAT has been developed by Anglo-American plc and has the advantage of being mining-specific. We convened a company-wide workshop to introduce the tool, address concerns and build alignment.

Much of our on-the-ground activity was concentrated at Mina de Cobre Panamá, where we have been engaged in active community dialogue for the last 18 months. Although at an early stage in its development, our extensive dialogue has been used to inform local residents about the project, to learn of their concerns and incorporate these into our plans. Following our purchase of Petaquilla Copper Ltd., we performed an in-depth evaluation of existing community development programs and committed to continuing to deliver four of the most important. We also helped establish a local contractors association to provide road maintenance services to our project, the first of many such opportunities this large project will create.


Download the PDF of our community affairs activities in 2008.