Around the world, international industries and investors face stakeholder pressure to increase investment in host country work forces while continually improving the quality of environmental, health, safety and social (ESG) performance.

Striking this delicate balance will challenge companies to improve how they invest in, guide, support and help develop the capacity of in-country consultants, rather than relying on imported international teams.

Acorn International was founded to offer a service model based on guided partnerships that ensure world-class assurance and maximized local content in ESG consulting services. Capacity building is a critical element of our business model.

Capacity is the ability of people, organizations and society as a whole to manage their affairs successfully. Capacity development is the process whereby people, organizations and institutions (society) as a whole unleash, strengthen, create, adapt and maintain capacity over time.

Capacity building is often understood to mean a purposeful, external intervention to strengthen capacity over time.

For the extractives industry, capacity building can focus on internal and external stakeholders, and can encompass any or all of the following:

Acorn International’s Position Paper describes some current challenges of international capacity building and outlines why it is important to us, as well as our industrial and investment clients, to continually improve performance in the strengthening of in-country ESG services.