Participatory Management In The Amazon: Progress, Potential And Replicability Of The “Nuestros Saberes” Program In Mining Contexts Nino Abel Ramos Panduro¹ ¹WSP Peru (Social Performance / Sustainability). (*Author/Presenter: nino.ramos2@wsp.com) Summary Investment projects, and mining projects in particular, developed in culturally diverse territories face multiple challenges. Among these, socio-environmental challenges often manifest themselves through conflicts whose origin seems to be linked to information asymmetry—in terms of access, generation, and dissemination—for decision-making that involves future autonomy and local development; as well as to the limited sustainability of social investment, whose main critical point lies in the discontinuity of planning aimed at ensuring the continuity of social programs beyond the closure of operations. While the State and mining companies invest in education, infrastructure, employability, and local development programs, these efforts do not always translate into sustainable territorial capacities or an effective reduction of social risk. In this context, this article introduces the Nuestros Saberes program as a model of shared responsibility between businesses and the State that addresses these gaps through participatory community management for generating sociocultural and census data—including the development of situational analyses—and for preserving and producing local knowledge. This approach conceives of education as a sustainable and distinctive territorial asset, rooted in the territory and oriented toward preserving collective memory. Nuestros Saberes strengthens community literacy capacities, institutionalizes applied social research and communication production so that teachers, students, families, and local elders can produce primary information, generate texts and audiovisual materials, and develop situational analyses useful for decision-making, project formulation, and community development planning. The study adopts a mixed and participatory methodological approach, articulated with a dynamic logical framework and a theory of change, and aligned with international standards such as the IFC Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability (SD1, SD7, SD8), the IDB Environmental and Social Performance Standards (SD10), and the ICMM Social Performance Maturity Matrix (Level 5: Leader in Good Practices). Since the program's implementation has been only partially carried out in the Kichwa Native Community of El Wayku, in the province of Lamas, department of San Martín (Peru), the article does not report final impacts, but rather validates the program's design and its capacity to: (i) optimize the State's educational investment and the mining sector's social investment, (ii) improve the traceability of results in ESG reporting, and (iii) reduce future economic losses associated with company-community conflicts. 70
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