Sustaining social licence to operate using community engagement: a case of Konkola Copper Mines - Nchanga, Zambia

The mining industry has both positive and negative impacts on their host communities. Therefore, it is not enough for mines to only rely on the legal licence, but instead, they need to nurture a trust-based relationship with the community called ‘Social License to Operate’ (SLO). The main objective of the study was to examine how ‘Social License to Operate’ can be developed and sustained using community engagement between Konkola Copper Mines - Nchanga Mine (KCM) and the communities within 10 km radius from the mine operations in Chingola, Zambia. The conceptual and theoretical framework of the study was grounded in the ‘Relative Deprivation Theory’ and the ‘Social Identity Theory’. The methodology of the study was qualitative and delved into a contemporary stakeholder risk issue affecting KCM. Therefore, data in the form of voice recordings and field notes was collected through 28 semi-structured interviews out of an estimated population size of over 28,000 households from five research sites, namely, Chiwempala, Nchanga North, Kapisha, Lulamba and Shimulala in Chingola that sufficiently demonstrated data saturation in the participants’ responses. From data collected, analysis and interpretation, through ‘Thematic Content Data Analysis’, three themes emerged which were adopted as variables of ‘Trust’; ‘Social Infrastructure’ and ‘Interactional Trust’ which deals with the quality and quantity of engagement while ‘Procedural Fairness’ looks at how the mine’s stakeholder engagement and grievance mechanism procedures contributed towards building a mutual relationship with the community. Of the 28 participants, 34 per cent benefitted from the mines through access to income generation while the remainder were negatively impacted through unemployment, poor community infrastructure, high moral decay, poor social services delivery and environmental pollution. Further, 69 per cent complained of lack of engagement and only 7 per cent expressed satisfaction on how their complaints were resolved. Further 67 110 per cent did not share any relationship with the mine. Key findings, based on this research, were that KCM – Nchanga Mine has a mixed ‘Social License to Operate’ because four townships accepted the company while one township strongly felt that they do not share any relationship with the mine as they had not benefitted from the mineral wealth naturally entitled to them. The conclusion was that it is cardinal for mines to develop a highly active collaborative relationship with the community as a pathway to sustainable mining. The recommendation was that lessons learnt from this study can be adopted by other mines with legacy socio-environmental issues to build and maintain their ‘Social License to Operate’ through having a robust integrated community engagement system.