We believe that our business success is directly correlated with our ability to build and maintain constructive, trusting relationships with local communities. Stakeholder engagement is the main process by which we work to build and maintain our relationships.

We work to develop informed and participative approaches in our engagements with our stakeholders. With this approach, we gain the opportunity to gauge interests, concerns and perceptions about our activities, seek out common ground, address areas of existing or potential conflict as early as possible, and build a foundation of trust with local communities.

Our operations must identify their stakeholders and must also register and track stakeholder concerns. This often includes monitoring complaints and grievances, as well as commitments made by Newmont. Sites are required to develop engagement plans for these groups, review them regularly, and make adjustments as needed through the life of the project.

To be effective, we develop and employ engagement techniques that are meaningful and appropriate to each community. Each site is expected to:

• Develop and maintain a regularly updated map of stakeholders, their concerns and their interests in relation to the mine
• Create opportunities for transparent and respectful engagement
• Record and monitor expectations, commitments, and complaints
• Be responsive to concerns, resolving complaints and grievances

We understand the importance of achieving broad community support for our projects. To accomplish this, our approach is to consult with local communities in an open and transparent manner. Further, we believe that consultation should occur freely and voluntarily, and be based upon a clear explanation of the intent and scope of the proposed project. To make this engagement as accessible as possible, we strive to present project information in a culturally appropriate manner, form and language.

Finally, we believe in starting this process as early as possible. In so doing, we not only allow stakeholders adequate time for discussion and analysis, we have enough time to clarify expectations, articulate commitments, address concerns, and achieve broad consensus without the pressure of compressed timelines.

Snapshot: New Community Consultative Committee at Ahafo
Snapshot: Involving the Community in Environmental Matters

Complaints and grievances are an expected element of our relationships with local communities. When they are well managed, however, they can improve relationships between the company and our stakeholders by bringing to light causes of concern and providing the basis for collaborative problem solving. Poorly managed and unresolved grievances, on the other hand, have the potential to strain the trust and respect we work every day to establish and build. With this in mind, we endeavor to implement dispute resolution processes at our sites to provide a safe, convenient, and effective way for community members to raise concerns.

We take an integrated and active approach that begins with gaining an understanding of our stakeholders and their concerns. By identifying complaints as early as possible we are better positioned to address these concerns before they escalate. A proactive approach is essential for best results, so we have also included conflict assessment as an aspect of early project development. These assessments provide local managers with a better understanding of the drivers of local conflict, so that engagement practices and community programs can be designed to prevent conflict before it arises.

Snapshot: KCGM Public Interaction Line
Snapshot: Building Local Capacity for Conflict Resolution
Snapshot: Artisanal Mining

Four of the lessons of the CRR (lessons 4-7) dealt with grievances or conflict. In 2010, we developed a conflict identification and resolution training program that we piloted at our Ahafo operations. Our plan for 2011 is to implement the training at three additional sites.

A corporate Social Responsibility Standard for "Complaint/Grievance Management and Resolution" was developed during 2010. The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining at the University of Queensland was commissioned to prepare an overview of best practice in company site-level grievance mechanisms, incorporating recent work by the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, Prof. John Ruggie.

Using the findings of this research, a three-tiered approach was incorporated into the revised Social Responsibility standard on complaints/grievance management and resolution, which provide:

1. opportunities for trained company personnel to respond immediately to low-level complaints that can be readily resolved;
2. escalation to an internal committee, with support from third parties and community representatives, for those complaints that require higher level attention or have more significant implications to our overall relationships with local communities; and
3. escalation to a third party or national-level body for more intractable grievances that require the services of an independent body to resolve.

Site managers will review existing grievance mechanisms against this new standard in 2011 and revise as needed to be in alignment with the revised standard. The Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining (CSRM) at the University of Queensland also assisted with the development of a social audit program to evaluate progress relative to our revised social responsibility standards. A pilot of one of the self-assessment components of the audit was conducted at Yanacocha in 2010. During this self-assessment, accomplishments were evaluated against the Social Responsibility Standards including the Newmont Security and Human Rights Social Responsibility Standard, which pertains to the Voluntary Principles. Areas identified during the self-assessment requiring clarification or additional attention are in the process of being addressed.

Communication with Local Communities
Stakeholder engagement at our operations in Akyem, Ghana, entailed meeting with the local community to discuss the possible construction of the project, a decision which will be made in 2011. The project team met several times with 67 farmers whose lands have been affected by the operation. In the meetings, the project team shared more about operational activities and processes. Newmont Ghana gave farmers the opportunity to harvest mature produce before clearing the land and arranged for them to receive compensation for lost property. A 66-member Compensation Negotiation Committee of elected community representatives was established to negotiate crop compensation, immovable properties, land deprivation and resettlement.

Snapshot: Building Support and Trust Through Engagement

Case Studies:
Shaping Sustainable Development in Peru
Ahafo Social Responsibility Agreement

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