On May 14, 2025, the CARO Centre, in partnership with the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL), Cercle K2, and the law firm Hogan Lovells, hosted a conference at Hogan Lovells' Paris offices on the theme:

"Successfully Integrating Local Communities into Infrastructure Projects: Current Challenges and New Perspectives"

The programme featured particularly rich discussions around strategic themes, including:

• Integrating local communities into infrastructure projects

• The new landscape for infrastructure projects: the essential oversight of their social and environmental impact

• Identifying the role of stakeholders (NGOs, local communities, independent observers) and sharing practical lessons learned

• A strengthened normative and institutional framework within development banks, with a focus on co-construction and grievance mechanisms (e.g. those of the public development banks FMO, DEG and PROPARCO)

• The challenges of stakeholder inclusion: feedback from funders and avenues for improvement to strengthen prevention

• Preventing disputes in infrastructure projects with the CMC (Centre for Mediation and Conciliation): an innovative, mediation-centred approach to preventing and mitigating disputes, with an overview of the CMC's operational framework

• Genuinely engaging stakeholders through a participatory and collaborative framework, in contrast with traditional mechanisms

• Using the CMC in practice: procedure and associated costs

PANELISTS 

• Olivier FILLE-LAMBIE, Partner, Hogan Lovells, and founding member of Cercle K2

• Bruno CANTIER, Partner, Hogan Lovells

• Marie-Camille PITTON, Secretary-General of the CARO Centre and founding member of Cercle K2

• Elise GROULX DIGGS, Lawyer, Mediator, International Expert in Business and Human Rights, and founding member of Cercle K2

• Sarah SAMEUR, Lawyer at the Paris Bar, International Law & Development Finance, DEMAIN | Law Firm

• Romain CARAYOL, Lawyer, Mediator