"Testing Community Consent: Tullow Oil project in Kenya

This case study assesses the extent of Tullow Oil’s compliance with the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in Turkana County, Kenya. It examines the company’s engagement in selected communities and finds that, while community engagement processes have improved in important ways, it has yet to achieve FPIC. The study provides recommendations that contribute to the evidence base for FPIC practice beyond this project, in order to improve FPIC implementation across the oil and gas industry. [It recommends that Tullow Oil should]:

• Facilitate efforts by communities and county government to document consultation processes and agreements in appropriate languages and to ensure that this is readily accessible by all community members.
• Broaden the short - term approach to ensure that FPIC consultations clearly explain immediate issues (such as a request for access to a particular piece of land for a new well) in the context of the potential positive and negative impacts of a multi - decade project.
• Maintain and deepen informed consent through formal, routine monthly monitoring meetings with community leaders, and at least quarterly with the broader community. Such meetings should be clearly documented and such documentation should be made available to community members and government representatives. This would build upon the already frequent presence in the communities of the company’s Community Liason Officers. This would ensure that communities are in a position to continue to provide informed consent, or alternatively to withdraw consent in line with agreed procedures. This would also enable county and national governments to be more fully aware of the situation.