Social Responsibility Agreement Research Articles

Factors enhancing and restricting the success of SRA compliance on the FLEGT/VPA initiative in Ghana. Insights from Juaso forest district in Ghana

This study examines the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between Ghana and the European Union (EU) within the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Initiative (FLEGT). The VPA aims to enhance forest governance, reduce deforestation, combat illegal practices, and improve livelihoods of forest fringe communities. The research focuses on the implementation of social responsibility agreements (SRAs) under the VPA framework and identifies factors contributing to their success or presenting challenges. Data collection involved mixed methods, including literature review and a survey of individuals involved in SRAs. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, including exploratory factor analysis, were conducted. Principal component analysis revealed that accountability, monitoring of implementation and progress of SRAs, and documentation of SRA agreements were key factors contributing to the success of negotiated SRAs, explaining about 68.36 % of success variance. Challenges and constraints were categorized into two main factors: weak community capacity to negotiate SRAs and weak community capacity to enforce compliance, explaining about 71.4 % of challenge variance. The study found that the exclusion of the local SRA committee (LSRAC) from certain decision-making processes affected trust and transparency in calculating SRA benefits. Elite capture of benefits was identified as an issue, as the LSRAC did not conduct sufficient consultations with community members before negotiations. The findings emphasize the importance of including local communities in all forest management activities and call for increased awareness of SRAs, particularly for the LSRAC. The study highlights the need for proper representation of community interests during negotiations and their inclusion in forest management plans.

Assessment of revenue loss from illegal logging in Ghana’s informal timber sector

This study estimated stumpage, Social Responsibility Agreement (SRA) and carbon revenue loss from Ghana’s informal timber sector. Secondary data on confiscated timber were collected from 13 District Forest offices from 2020 to 2022. The timber species volumes were computed with their corresponding stumpage, SRA, and potential carbon revenue. The results indicate that US$ 14,670.73 was lost as stumpage revenue between 2020 and 2022 in the study Forest Districts. SRA revenu e of US$ 733.54 originally destined for the development of forest fringe communities was also lost. For the study period, the highest potential carbon revenue loss (US$ 37,572) was recorded in the year 2020. The findings have implications for the country’s forest sector emission reduction target under the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and the realization of carbon revenue from the mandatory and voluntary markets. One key way to improve the forest revenue system is to address illegal logging as it is widespread in the country and contributes to the decline in stumpage revenue, which is one of the main sources of revenue for forest management and development at the local level.

A reality check: unveiling the unseen faces of SRA compliance in Ghana

Emerging forest governance regimes emphasise the implementation of social responsibility agreements (SRAs) to enable local communities' access forest rents. While studies have considered SRA implementation in recent years, they are restricted to a few areas and fail to provide insights into wide-scale compliance. This study addresses this by analysing SRA compliance in 36 communities with different forest resource endowments in Ghana. The study found differences in levels SRA compliance with off-reserve actor largely non-compliant. Compliance was motivated by a combination of instrumental, but largely normative factors. Context-specific issues – e.g. low awareness and actor mistrust– enabled non-compliance. The findings suggest that a utopian model and reliance on sanctions alone may not improve SRA compliance in Ghana. Rather, SRAs need to evolve to embrace context-specific norms and the scale of timber contracts. The findings lay a benchmark for SRA compliance monitoring and have extended applications for FLEGT implementation in Ghana and beyond.

Tree registration to counter elite capture of forestry benefits in Ghana’s Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions

The regularization of rights to commercial tree species, or “tree registration,” is being promoted by the State (Forestry Commission of Ghana) and non-governmental organizations in Ghana to help minimize elite capture of forestry benefits. Our study examines smallholder farmers’ response to tree registration in selected Ashanti and Brong Ahafo Region communities. Responses are considered in light of persistent constraints farmers endure, including crop damage from tree felling and non-remission (to communities from timber concessionaires) of social responsibility agreement (SRA) benefits. Nearly one-half of farmers said trees had been removed from their farms resulting in crop damage, but virtually no one could verify SRA benefits. Most farmers were unaware of tree titling, and no one had completed the registration process. The multilayered landownership and tree tenure structures in Ghana make registering difficult, if not impossible for smallholder farmers, many of whom are without the requisite social or financial capital, to follow through on instructions given to complete registration. Respondents cite a number of benefits gained by registering such as reductions in non-consensual chainsaw timber felling. However, filial and community piety (the obligation to respect and honor one’s family and extended relations) may undermine farmers’ use of statutory empowerment (gained through registration) to minimize elite capture.

MAKNA KEPATUTAN DAN KEWAJARAN BERKAITAN DENGAN TANGGUNG JAWAB SOSIAL PERUSAHAAN DALAM UNDANG – UNDANG NOMOR 40 TAHUN 2007 TENTANG PERSEROAN TERBATAS

the purpose of the author of this article is to discuss the meaning of propriety and reason- ableness in Article 74 paragraph (2) of Law Number 40 of 2007 concerning Limited Liability Compa- nies (UUPT) on a corporate social responsibility agreement in the distribution. The method uses normative legal studies with legislative approaches, concepts, and case studies. The propriety meaning is conformity based on balance, meaning that it must fulfill the element of conformity with the situation or the balance between the company’s ability to risk the activities of the company. Fairness is interpreted as something that should or should be done based on the order and the appropriate rules. Compliance and reasonableness are viewed from the point of view of the amount that is spent on the company’s CSR must be in proportion and not contrary to the provisions of the legislation. Compliance and reasonableness are related to the number, objectives, and form of the agreement.

‘Experimental’ or business as usual? Implementing the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Ghana

In this paper, we challenge recent positive assessments made of the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), through a case study of their implementation in Ghana. We do this through a review of the rich literature on forest governance in Ghana and the results of 160 semi-structured interviews with relevant actors in the country. While we agree that the VPA has helped establish new fora for dialogue in the forest sector in Ghana, we argue that it has not fundamentally changed the existing forest governance regime. Specifically, the VPA implementation has not changed tree tenure and benefit sharing practices, and by extension, the forestry concession system that for over 8 decades has failed to secure forest sustainability and social equity. The changes introduced through the VPA implementation – the Timber Legality Assurance System, updated forest management plans, and an artisanal milling strategy, largely represent technical fixes to deeply political processes that have long upheld unsustainable practices. Other changes such as enhanced enforcement of Social Responsibility Agreements and more transparent allocations of timber rights are improvements, but they do not fundamentally change the tenure and benefit sharing arrangement, which by any standard is inequitable. Our evidence particularly contradicts Overdevest and Zeitlin's (2016, 2018) depiction of the country's VPA experience as an emerging ‘experimentalist’ forest governance entailing substantive dialogue, recursive problem-solving, and policy learning. At the contrary, and paradoxically, we argue that the VPA implementation in Ghana serves to stabilize and reproduce the very forest governance regime that it set out to reform– a process that is much less ‘experimental’, and much more business as usual.

Illegality and inequity in Ghana’s cocoa-forest landscape: How formalization can undermine farmers control and benefits from trees on their farms

Schemes to promote sustainable forest management have increasingly focused on addressing widespread informalities in timber production, based on the presumed links between formalisation, the maintenance of forest cover and local welfare. This trend is typified by the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative and associated Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPA) aimed at eradicating the trade of illegal wood between partner countries and the EU. Yet there is concern that such initiatives might have detrimental impacts on the largely informal rights of local resource users. In order to inform the formalisation agenda, more detailed analysis of the operation of local rights, and how they might be affected by particular schemes is required.This paper focuses on Ghana as a country with a largely informal wood sector that has signed a VPA with the EU for the express purpose of rapid formalisation. Our analysis is guided by a framework for assessing which types of rights might be transformed by particular approaches to formalisation and the subsequent effect this might have on forests and people in particular local contexts. We then apply this framework to an in-depth local case study of on-farm timber governance within a cocoa-forest landscape in Ghana’s Central Region to examine how the operation of formal and informal and substantive and procedural rights shape who controls, and benefits from, on-farm timber production. We then analyse the content of the VPA in light of these local realities and assess its potential impacts.Our findings highlight how the substantive rights the state grants to companies are presumed to be balanced with the granting of procedural rights to farmers via the mechanisms of right of refusal to harvest on-farm timber, compensation for damage to cocoa crops and the negotiation of community-level Social Responsibility Agreements with private companies. Yet a comparison of these formal rights with farmers’ existing informal rights reveals that farmers’ control and access to benefits from trees on their farms are notably higher in the ‘illegal’ chainsaw dominated informal sector than in the ‘legal’ state-based system. Farmers choose to maintain trees on farms both to shade cocoa and in anticipation of benefits from their informal sale. The VPA, however, aims to eradicate all informal on-farm timber production and thus threatens existing local rights and benefit capture while diminishing incentives to maintain trees on farm. Rather than further criminalising local systems of timber governance, the maintenance of tree cover and local benefit-sharing would be better served by 1) phasing out timber concessions on farmland, 2) abandoning the distinction between planted and native trees on farms and, 3) understanding, recognizing and respecting the existing informal rights of farmers, traditional authorities and chainsaw loggers to negotiate among themselves patterns of access and control of on-farm trees and timber. In general, the case study challenges the assertion that formalisation is requisite for sustainable forest management and mandates a more nuanced and contextually informed assessment of the assumed costs and benefits associated with particular forms of legal and policy reform.

Scale-Specific but Inter-Linked Strategies for Managing Forest Resource Conflicts in Ghana: Forest Professionals’ Views

Constructive conflict management strategies according to forest professionals have the potential to minimise the prevalence offorest resource conflicts at different levels of scale in Ghana’s high forest zone. The paper therefore employed mixed methodsin gathering data on conflict causes, prevailing and alternative conflict management strategies from forest professionals’perspectives. Results revealed multifaceted forest resource conflict causes such as: i) weak implementation of policystrategies and actions; ii) absence of guidelines on crop damage compensation payment; iii) boundary disputes; iv) farmlandscarcity; and v) local elite capture of social responsibility agreement negotiation process and benefits. It was also ascertainedthat prevailing conflict management strategies are diverse but strategies used are based on case-by-case approaches whichlack clearly defined conflict management mechanism to redress the numerous grievances in the sector. It is in view of that theforest professionals recommended scale-specific but inter-linked strategies to be institutionalised in the forestry sector.

The policy and practice of the Social Responsibility Agreement in Ghana

Effective management of natural resources can be constrained or facilitated by their institutional frameworks, and policy to practice transfer challenges. The questions at the centre of this paper are: to what extent does implementation of forest interventions follow their policies, and what challenges exist for policy to practice transfers? In Ghana, the policy of the Social Responsibility Agreement (SRA) devolves decisionmaking powers to local authorities to represent the interest of communities in benefit share accruing from timber harvesting. By following two concluded SRAs in western Ghana through ethnography and semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the extent the SRA negotiation process emulated the policy, and with what challenges and outcomes. Lessons are drawn to inform practitioners, policy makers or researchers who aim to strengthen the policy implementation process.

The policy and practice of the Social Responsibility Agreement in Ghana

The policy and practice of the Social Responsibility Agreement in Ghana

Representation without accountability in forestry: experiences from the Social Responsibility Agreement in Ghana

Emerging forest policy initiatives aim to strengthen community engagement in forest governance by implementing interventions through democratic institutions. In Ghana, the Social Responsibility Agreement (SRA) is a forest management scheme that entails devolution of decision-making powers on benefit sharing from commercial logging to local authorities to represent local interest. This paper explores how democratic representation is manifested under the choice of local leaders in the context of the SRA by focusing on: choice of local leaders, responsiveness (how represented and desired interests compare), and accountability (feedback and sanction mechanisms).A joint representative body comprised of the chief and the customary structure, and the elected local government leaders represented the communities. The authority of the customary structure is reinforced by cultural and historical settings; enabling chiefs to capture decision making powers and dominate activities in the representation processes. Devoid of popular consultation, the leaders largely assume local priorities relying mainly on their nearness to the local population. To some extent, and for multiple reasons, the concluded SRAs under this study succeeded in providing social amenities to the people but due to accountability failures, the scheme was weak in engaging the local population in the negotiation of benefits from commercial forest exploitation. The question remains open as to whether greater accountability – that is, more-democratic representation – would produce greater responsiveness and a more efficient and equitable match between what leaders have to offer and the services people ultimately receive.

Corporate Social Responsibility Agreements Model for Community Development: The Case of Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited and its Mine Local Community

In Ghana, community development is regarded by mine local communities as the most important aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to the extent that often community development is perceived to be a statutory responsibility of mining companies. Consequently, mine local communities demand for more and more, sometimes prohibitively expensive, contributions towards community development. The inability of mining companies to meet all the demands often leads to unsavoury relation between mining companies and their host communities with concomitant adverse effect on mining operations. This constitutes a business risk that needs to be addressed properly by shifting from the earlier practices of making voluntary contributions towards community development to making sustainable community development an integral part of the mining business. This paper presents the evolutionary strategic models, with differing principles and action plans, used by Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited (GSBPL) over the years to manage the development of its Bogoso/Prestea Mine Local Community (BPMLC), videlicet from a poor Philanthropic Community Assistance Model (PCAM) to an improved but ineffective Community Driven Assistance Model (CDAM) and eventually to the current effective, successful CSR Agreements Model (CSRAM). The paper also highlights the lessons learnt from the negotiation process that led to formulation of the CSRAM as well as the benefits and successes resulting from its implementation and the challenges. It is concluded that mutual understanding, tolerance, transparency, trust, commitment and accountability are key to the successful management of CSR and community development. Keywords : Social Responsibility, Agreements Model, Mining Communities

Corporate Social Responsibility Agreements Model for Community Development: The Case of Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited and its Mine Local Community

In Ghana, community development is regarded by mine local communities as the most important aspect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to the extent that often community development is perceived to be a statutory responsibility of mining companies. Consequently, mine local communities demand for more and more, sometimes prohibitively expensive, contributions towards community development. The inability of mining companies to meet all the demands often leads to unsavoury relation between mining companies and their host communities with concomitant adverse effect on mining operations. This constitutes a business risk that needs to be addressed properly by shifting from the earlier practices of making voluntary contributions towards community development to making sustainable community development an integral part of the mining business. This paper presents the evolutionary strategic models, with differing principles and action plans, used by Golden Star (Bogoso/Prestea) Limited (GSBPL) over the years to manage the development of its Bogoso/Prestea Mine Local Community (BPMLC), videlicet from a poor Philanthropic Community Assistance Model (PCAM) to an improved but ineffective Community Driven Assistance Model (CDAM) and eventually to the current effective, successful CSR Agreements Model (CSRAM). The paper also highlights the lessons learnt from the negotiation process that led to formulation of the CSRAM as well as the benefits and successes resulting from its implementation and the challenges. It is concluded that mutual understanding, tolerance, transparency, trust, commitment and accountability are key to the successful management of CSR and community development. Keywords: Social Responsibility, Agreements Model, Mining Communities

The role of the concept of corporate social responsibility in building relationships and in the supply chain

Background: The aim of this article is to determine the importa nce of the concept of corporate social responsibility in building partnerships in the supp ly chain. In the recent period, one could notice that more an d more international companies implementing their s trategies based on the concept of sustainable development are evaluati ng and qualifying their suppliers basing on standar ds of ethics in business. Methods: This paper analyzed the requirements of the multin ationals companies towards their suppliers in imple menting elements of the concept of corporate social respons ibility. Results: The results of the analyzes which were presented o n practical examples show that buyers define to sup pliers, very often detailed, standards for ethical conduct for s uppliers (Supplier Conduct Principles, Principles an d Standards of Ethical Supply Management Conduct) and guides for their implementation (Supply Chain CSR Deployment guidebook, Purchasing Way, Supplier Sustainability program Manual), organizing programs (Supply Chain Social Responsibility programs), implementing the Supplier Responsibility projects and developing a checklist (Supply Chain CS R Checklist) for self-evaluation of providers. Conclusions: When observing global trends one could notice that recently more and more suppliers are evaluated in terms of the fulfillment of the principles of sustainable development, guided by the economic aspects (requiring high technical quality, reliability of supply, competitive price, stable financial position, compliance with legal re quirements), environmental aspects, as well as social aspects (p rinciples based on the idea of the Global Compact). One could also perceive that many international companies signing contracts with suppliers require them to sign a dec laration, obligating them to introduce the concept of corporate social r esponsibility by applying the principles contained in Statement on Business Practices and in compliance with the requir ements of environmental requirements (Supplier Social & Environmental Responsibility Agreement).

The Chieftaincy Institution in Ghana: Causers and Arbitrators of Conflicts in Industrial Jatropha Investments

Large-scale land acquisition in Africa has been the concern and the focus of growing global literature on land grabbing. The upswing in biofuel investments in Ghana led to large-scale land acquisitions by the private sector presided over by chiefs. This research investigates how chiefs, in playing their traditional roles in the acquisition of land and as arbitrators, were, in most instances, the cause and the solution to the ensuing conflicts in the various communities. Data was collected through interviews, use of questionnaires and focus group discussions. Some of the conflict issues include loss of farmlands or other communal lands, disagreements on the land acquisition processes, the quantum and mode of execution of compensation payments and the existence or contents of social responsibility agreements. Furthermore, the use of negotiation, mediation and courts by people in these communities relative to arbitration by chiefs is increasing. The Government of Ghana needs to strengthen the public sector land institutions and put in place stronger and binding mechanisms for resolving disputes arising from large-scale acquisitions of land to cushion the effect of the weakening confidence in the chieftaincy institution.

Institutionalizing citizen participation and community representation in natural resource management: Lessons from the Social Responsibility Agreement negotiation in Ghana

Many attempts to institutionalize community-based natural resource management have focused on mechanisms to secure accountable representation through participation. Within the framework of co-management, negotiation has become a prominent strategy for dealing with conflict. Using a case study of the negotiation of the social responsibility agreement for acquisition of timber rights in Ghana, the paper explores citizen expectations of participation compared with reality and the factors influencing citizen preference. Specific lessons learned were the need to be sensitive to opening social and political spaces for citizen participation, flexibility to allow dynamic interplay between the influencing factors and the representation process, and some empowerment interventions to create civil consciousness to ensure demand for downward accountability.

Unpacking and repacking community representation in forest policy and management negotiations: lessons from the social responsibility agreement in Ghana

One issue, which is increasingly being noted as fundamentally essential for any effective community participation and negotiation process but has for long evaded policy research attention, is community representation in forest management decision-making. This paper, responding to the limited attention given to the concept attempts to provide a theoretical review of the subject in the context of social responsibility agreement negotiations in Ghana and to suggest lessons for effective community representation in forest policy and management negotiations. The paper borrows extensively from a research conducted in the Domi River Forest Reserve area, which explored the expectation and reality of how communities were represented in the social responsibility agreement (SRA) negotiation for the award of Timber Utilisation Contracts in Ghana. In addition, the paper has extensively reviewed literature to propose that community representation should focus on defining, both in spatial and social sense, the boundary of the term ‘community', who represents the community (representatives), what is being represented (content) and how it is being represented (process). The paper argues that an appropriate framework for community representation is one that explicitly and unambiguously defines ‘who is to be represented', establishes and presents collective community interest and ensures the ‘selection' of legitimate and accountable representatives. The paper provides an appropriate framework and lessons to guide policy ‘makers' and practitioners in forest policy and management planning and implementation to ensuring effective representation and participation of communities. Keywords : community, representation, negotiation, social responsibility agreement, timber utilization contract Ghana Journal of Forestry Vol. 15&16 2004: 20-29