ITSCI has issued its 2018/2019 Incident Review. The report gives an overview of the success of stakeholders working with the ITSCI Programme to achieve risk mitigation relating to mineral supply chains from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda during the twelve month period 1st November 2018 to 31st October 2019.
The ITSCI Programme has extensive experience supporting companies, governments and civil society in the identification and mitigation of risks associated with minerals supply chains. Our standards are independently confirmed to be 100% aligned with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas and we support companies performing due diligence according to those expectations. Our on-the-ground teams supplement traceability with an incident management system to identify and verify risks, recommend mitigation actions, and facilitate the discussion of mitigation among local stakeholders. We also follow up on, and report, the progress of mitigation.
Measures of ITSCI implementation during this reporting period include;
- 2,201 monitored mine sites
- 690 on the ground visits per month
- 650,000 mineral transactions
- 450 whistle-blower calls
- 1,492 incidents opened
Of the 1,492 incidents, 144 were categorised as Level 1 seriousness, with potential association with human rights abuses, the involvement of non-state armed groups, or illegal taxation or involvement in mineral business by rogue individuals of state armed groups.
Of the 144 Level 1 incidents, 9 were categorised as High Risk, with relevance for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reporting. To date, 3 have been closed as resolved, while 6 remain under mitigation and monitoring.
To facilitate resolution of incidents ITSCI supported local multi-stakeholder meetings for 45 committees and conducted 267 training sessions with 4,832 beneficiaries. As a result, across all incidents and ITSCI areas the overall rate of resolution of incidents rose to 81%.
ITSCI has 32 measures of outcomes from incident management which for the purpose of simplification are aggregated into 7 groupings. For resolved incidents, the proportion of major outcomes was;
- 48% Due Diligence Improvements
- 12% Governance & Security Improvements
- 12% Awareness-Raising & Mediation
- 4% Human Rights/Health and Safety Risk Mitigation
- 2% Mine/Company/Mineral Suspension or Seizure
As a result of better training and reporting the measure of improved due diligence significantly increased from that in previous calendar years.
