The OpenLandContracts.org team is available to work with governments and other stakeholders to create country-specific websites to host contracts and other relevant documents. A country-specific site would include the same functionality as OpenLandContracts.org, enabling users to access contract documents, read summaries (or "annotations") of key contract terms, search within or across contracts, and compare one contract to another. Each individual country site will link to the global OpenLandContracts.org database.
For host governments...
What benefits can this project bring to your country?
A country-specific contract repository will enable policymakers, companies, and communities to better understand and monitor existing contracts and to use this knowledge to inform future deals. By making the contracts more accessible and understandable, a country-specific repository could help increase government and citizen understanding of the content of documents that are often difficult to understand for non-lawyers. The repository could be one important tool in a government’s efforts to inform citizens about the terms governing large-scale land-based investments.
One example of a country-specific site is the website that our team helped develop for the government of Guinea. In Guinea, ResourceContracts.org partnered with the government’s mining contract review committee to produce www.contratsminiersguinee.org, which has significantly increased the transparency of the Guinean mining sector and the knowledge of Guinea’s citizens, government officials, and investors.
How could the process work?
The process for the project (including workflow and maintenance considerations) would be decided by your government and the OpenLandContracts.org team at the outset of the project. It would include designing the features of the online repository to meet both government needs and OpenLandContracts.org technical capabilities.
The goal of the process would be to put at the disposal of your government the experience that the OpenLandContracts.org team and their colleagues have acquired in building the global database, and to assist in developing a state-of-the-art online platform to enhance transparency and understanding of contracts in your country.
Please note that our sister site, ResourceContracts.org, is also available to build a country-specific website that focuses on oil, gas, and mining contracts, or we can develop a comprehensive site that covers those types of contracts as well as commercial agriculture and forestry contracts.
For investors ...
Recent and forthcoming guidelines on responsible land-based investment point to the importance of transparency around contractual terms, and to the significant role to be played by investors in this process. Numerous guidelines recommend that investors make all relevant information concerning land-based investments, including the contracts governing control over and/or use of the land concerned, available to affected stakeholders and the general public. Even where applicable legal frameworks do not specifically require such disclosure, investors can take the lead in promoting increased transparency and ensuring that affected stakeholders are informed of the rights and responsibilities of contracting parties.
OpenLandContracts.org provides investors with a practical, straightforward way of meeting this emerging best practice by providing a neutral web-based platform for disclosure. Investors can work directly with the OpenLandContracts.org team to select and publish land-based investment contracts on the online repository. Should you wish to learn more about how disclosure can become a part of the investment process, please contact the OpenLandContracts.org team using the details provided below.
For further information …