Welcome remarks and keynote speeches followed by a High-level opening panel (45 minutes): Leveraging government-to-government partnerships to make critical transition minerals supply more responsible and resilient. Demand for minerals that are critical to the world’s energy and digital transitions is set to grow rapidly. Governments are making sustained efforts to foster a resilient supply chain of transition minerals, including by establishing partnership agreements with mineral-producing countries to contribute to local value addition and a stable minerals supply. Successful international cooperation will be contingent on governments’ capacity to overcome barriers to investment and trade, including with mineral producing areas where corruption, security or other risks prevail lest such risks disrupt supply and compromise a just transition. This session will bring together voices from across the policymaking, business and civil society communities to explore how emerging government-to-government partnerships on these critical commodities can drive investment where it is needed while benefiting mining communities and enhancing the long-term resilience of supply in the process.

A range of challenges confront policymakers and financial institutions aiming to foster responsible investment in the minerals required for the energy and digital transitions. The need for investment in the sector will also be key to realizing the ambitions of mineral producing countries to increase local value addition and promote green industrialisation pathways. Building on the opening panel, this session will address avenues for emerging sources of public finance to galvanize sustainable private investment in complex jurisdictions, including as part of critical minerals supply agreements.

The mining sector has broad exposure to security issues, with implications for communities and larger regions alike. Mine operators often contract or work with public and private security in challenging environments. Different arrangements prevail, which can lead to a range of different consequences. When this goes wrong, it harms local communities. Poor management of security and human rights, therefore, end up compromising social license to operate and can disrupt mining projects. Mining companies tend to hire or subcontract security providers locally and are expected to address and mitigate security and human rights risks in line with the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs) and international labour standards. This session will explore the multifaceted ways in which local security issues can manifest, and how mining operators can address them through enhanced collaboration and dialogue with governments, civil society organisations and other private sector representatives. The session will endeavour to address many of the following themes: • Challenges working with public security forces • Complex environments and conflict drivers • Protecting marginalized communities, including indigenous peoples • Fundamental rights at work • Implications for due diligence

Sand and silicates, in addition to clay, stones and other aggregates, play a vital role in a diverse range of sectors, spanning electronics, renewable energy and infrastructure. Fuelling our modern societies and economies as well as providing indispensable materials for local development, sand and silicates extraction are reaching extraordinary volumes making them the second most widely consumed natural resource on the globe, after water. The social and environmental impacts associated with the extraction of these materials, alongside supply concerns, have long been overlooked. Building on a year-long dialogue and research project involving companies in the sand and silicate supply chain, civil society organisations and researchers, this session will delve into the key characteristics and dynamics of sand and silicates supply chains, and explore how due diligence can help address key risks and source these materials more responsibly.

The OECD Minerals Guidance sets out a unique role for smelters and refiners as control points for due diligence audits along mineral supply chains. Articulating the division of responsibilities for upstream and downstream actors, OECD recommendations on control points are intended to foster a rationalised system of engagement and leverage throughout the supply chain aimed at effectively mitigating serious risks spanning human rights, financial crime and conflict financing. Many indications suggest though that too little due diligence information is collected and acted upon, and engagement between parts of the supply chain is often limited to audits. The session will focus on expectations for smelters and refiners, the role of institutionalised mechanisms in supporting and assessing risk mitigation, and lessons learned from trading hubs with a view to enhancing incentives for more transparency and meaningful due diligence.

A significant share of the global supply of heavy rare earth elements (REEs) come from Myanmar, which is also one of the world’s largest tin producers. Crucial to a range of clean energy and communications technologies, these supply chains are exposed to conflict, human rights and environmental risks. Access constraints, opacity and vested interests make it difficult to meaningfully address related impacts, yet the critical nature of these resources may also make disengagement seem a distant prospect. This session will examine key challenges facing responsible business conduct in conflict settings, putting acute risks in Myanmar sourcing in focus while drawing on other examples.

Regulatory frameworks, legislation and market requirements for due diligence and responsible business conduct in mineral supply chains continue to evolve, with different models being used to support responsible sourcing expectations. In particular, environmental impacts have been a topic of growing concern, with policymakers looking to embed environmental considerations into mineral supply chain due diligence legislations. This session will look at how diverse such approaches have become, spanning reporting requirements, recognition of voluntary audit and due diligence schemes, spot checks, or expectations for provenance and specific risk and geographic scopes. It will look both at where market requirements and legislation may be distinct but mutually supportive, but also ways in which divergent approaches could trigger fragmentation and friction and contemplate ways to address such challenges.

The illicit trade in gold has become a significant concern for governments in Latin America, which have initiated key reforms to enhance transparency in the mining and metals sector. As highlighted by the OECD and other organisations' reports, the sector continues to be exploited by non-state armed groups, with devastating harms to the environment and local communities. The networks involved span the wider region and globe, involving military and political elites, militant groups, domestic gangs, and transnational criminal organisations making use of regional gold transit hubs and maritime shipping to facilitate the illegal trade in gold. This session will explore the most acute challenges currently, and steps companies and governments can take to address related risks.