Montrose was approached to provide Community Liaison Officer (CLO) support to establish and maintain an effective working relationship between local government, the fishing community and the company for our client’s 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 dry season offshore oil and gas exploration activities in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
Solution
Montrose identified suitable candidates for the CLO positions – local Rakhine people with strong networks in local government and civil society, and significant expertise in maintaining community relations and communicating effectively with all stakeholders.
The role and responsibilities of the CLOs included:
Providing CLO support for all offshore seismic exploration activities undertaken by the client.
Preparing and disseminating communication materials on the survey activities as part of pre-commencement communications.
Supporting the client with consultation activities relating to the exploration activities being undertaken, including pre-commencement meetings with relevant third parties in townships and villages.
Being contactable 24/7 by telephone by fishermen, regional agencies and members of the public.
Communicating without delay all enquiries, feedback and/or grievances to the client.
Supporting the client in communicating with the originator of the enquiry, feedback and/or grievance in a timely manner until the matter was closed out.
Collating and analysing the grievance or feedback data, and submitting reports and grievance records to the client.
Impact
The work achieved its aim of notifying community stakeholders of the details of the company’s exploration activities, ensuring good local understanding and lack of negative impacts, and operating a grievance mechanism through which community stakeholders could raise questions or concerns to the company.
