CONNEX — Negotiation Support

Empowering emerging economies to better negotiate investment contracts

The G7 CONNEX Initiative provides emerging economies with negotiation support for investment contracts in mining and increasingly infrastructure.

Tailored towards the country, our short-term, multidisciplinary support provides requesting governments with the knowledge needed to achieve better deals for this generation and the next.

WHAT

Since 2015, CONNEX has provided requesting governments with short-term tailored multidisciplinary negotiation support in mining and increasingly infrastructure. CONNEX’s negotiation support is multidisciplinary – technical, legal, financial, environmental and social – allowing emerging economies to do just that – emerge, grow and prosper.

WHY

Many emerging countries simply do not have enough experience in negotiating complex commercial contracts. Multinational companies have entire teams that only concentrate on negotiating contracts for decades in multiple countries. CONNEX provides balance at the table, leading to better deals for the government.

HOW

Requesting governments begin a dialogue with the CONNEX Support Unit, to discuss the government’s overall goals for a specific project (mining, infrastructure and potentially renewable energy) and in which areas – technical, financial, legal, environmental and social – the negotiation support may be needed.

WHO

The CONNEX Support Unit consists of a Governing Board, the Advisory Committee and the Secretariat. The Governing Board consists of the CONNEX funders and oversees all key activities of the Support Unit. It makes the final support decision after a partner government has submitted a support request. The Advisory Committee provides internal advice for support and outreach processes and serves as a sounding board for the initiative. It is composed of leading private sector, civil society, academic and former government officials. The Secretariat is tasked with implementing the negotiation support by assessing the partner governments’ needs in detail and by facilitating the required external teams of experts. It furthermore conducts outreach, marketing, knowledge management and capacity development in the context of the CONNEX initiative.