Internationalization of guidelines for Large-Scale Projects in the Amazon debated in Mexico

The Center for Sustainability Studies (GVces) of FGV’s Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV EAESP) presented the results of the initiative Large-Scale Projects in the Amazon - Lessons Learned and Guidelines during an event held in Mexico City. As a forum organized by GIZ – the German agency for development cooperation –, through the Emerging Market Sustainability Dialogues on Sustainable Infrastructure (EMSD) network, the main goal of the event was to discuss the challenges of implementing tools and guidelines to ensure sustainability in infrastructure and mining projects. The discussion led by GVces focused on the possibilities for the internationalization of Guidelines for Large-Scale Projects in the Amazon, including the transfer of social technology to create guidelines and the definition of pilot deployment projects.

Led by GVces and the International Finance Corporation, from the World Bank Group, the initiative – which has the support of FGV’s Applied Research and Knowledge Network – began in 2015 to organize and highlight lessons learned and recommendations, whether in the context of public policy or business practices, and ultimately establish a new type of relationship between major enterprises and the territories that they target. After a broad collective construction process covering around 400 people from more than 190 institutions, the first edition of the guidelines was released in March 2017 on six fronts: Territorial Planning and Organization; Financial Instruments; Institutional Capacities; Children, Adolescents and Women; Indigenous Peoples, Traditional Communities and Quilombolas; and Authorized Vegetable Suppression.

The publication is available on the GVces website and FGV’s Digital Library. The second edition will be released over the next few months, adding guidelines on Compulsory Displacements. GVces had already contributed in three forums of the EMSD network on sustainable infrastructure in emerging countries in Beijing (2015), Geneva (2016) and Berlin (2017).