A Strategic Approach to Early Stakeholder Engagement

Helping smaller companies is a stated area of strategic importance in IFC's Oil, Gas and Mining (OGM) Industry Strategy.1 Accordingly, IFC has in recent years increased investments in junior companies in the extractive industries, primarily those companies engaged in exploration and early project planning and development. Generally, a junior company is a small company that is currently developing or seeking to develop a natural resource deposit or field. Junior companies are most likely to be found in commodity exploration, such as oil, natural gas, and minerals. A junior company is somewhat like a startup in that it is either looking for funding to help it grow, or looking for a much larger company to buy it out. These companies are now playing an important role in many frontier markets.