Our Response

The IGF seeks to develop a practice note on the ring-fencing implications of mining value-addition incentives for integrated mining projects, in continuation of the 2025 Ring-Fencing Mining Income toolkit. The note will take the toolkit's existing design guidance on integrated operations as its starting point and extend it to address the incentive-interaction question: how should a ring-fencing regime be designed, and how should a value-addition incentive be designed, so that the two are coherent rather than potentially working against each other on the same integrated project?

The country case set will be determined jointly with the consultant at inception stage. Candidates must include jurisdictions that illustrate materially different design choices. Such design choices include a statutory integration test permitting pooled treatment of extraction and processing under common control, a differentiated tax rate between mining and processing licences, strict project-level ring-fencing with value addition pursued through the royalty schedule rather than through ring-fencing relief, and vertical integration achieved through trade policy (export restriction) rather than through the ring-fencing rule as such. Ghana and Tanzania are both covered in the toolkit's shared-processing-facility and upstream/downstream discussions and are also considered as candidates in this study because they build directly on documented toolkit examples rather than introducing an unrelated set of countries.

Deliverable – Technical Input for the Ring-Fencing and Value Addition Practice Note

The IGF seeks a consultant, or small consultant team, with expertise in mining fiscal policy and comparative tax law to conduct desk-based research and support the drafting of the practice note. The work is weighted toward legal and literature research rather than field consultation. The consultant will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Prepare a short inception note proposing the for IGF's confirmation, with rationale, together with the analytical framework to be applied consistently across cases (a typology of ring-fencing design and a ) and confirming how the note's structure will map onto and extend the relevant sections of the 2025 toolkit.
• Examine country cases where ring-fencing rules separate upstream mining and downstream processing activities alongside policies or incentives designed to attract investment in downstream value addition. Assess how these frameworks interact in practice, identify any implementation challenges or unintended consequences, and draw on discussions with government officials and other stakeholders to understand how these issues are being managed.
• For each case study country, undertake a primary-source review of the relevant mining code, income tax act, royalty legislation, and any special licensing regime, to establish:
  • (a) how the ring-fence is legally defined;
  • (b) whether and how integrated extraction-processing operations are treated differently from stand-alone projects;
  • (c) what value-addition incentive, if any, applies to the processing stage and how it is designed (rate differential, holiday, accelerated allowance, integration carve-out);
  • (d) how transfer pricing between ring-fenced segments is regulated; and
  • (e) whether case law or administrative guidance has tested the boundary.
• Identify, for each country, at least one integrated project that illustrates how the ring-fencing rule and the value-addition incentive have applied together in practice, including any documented disputes with the revenue authority over the mining/processing boundary or over the incentive's effect.
• Where available, compile documented estimates or reasonable proxies for the fiscal cost of the relevant value-addition incentive and any evidence on whether it changed investment or beneficiation outcomes, flagging data gaps.
• Where the desk research leaves material gaps, conduct light-touch validation (by email or short call) with country officials and practitioners to confirm interpretation of the legal provisions.

Timelines

• Inception note proposing the country case set, analytical framework, and legal sources. Due: November 2026. Estimated effort: 5 days.
• Literature review and typology synthesis. Due: November 2026. Estimated effort: 5 days.
• Primary legal-source review and case mapping for all confirmed countries. Due: November 2026. Estimated effort: 5 days.
• First draft and review of the report. Due: December 2026. Estimated effort: 10 days.
• Finalization of findings in the final draft report. Due: December 2026. Estimated effort: 5 days.

Location

Remote

IISD will not apply for residency and work permits for this position on behalf of the applicant. Candidates must hold appropriate work authorization for locations where they expect to be based.

Application Process

Application deadline: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until filled.

This is a consultant position. Submissions must be in English.

To apply for this consultancy, interested applicants should submit the following:

• A CV (detailing your experience with mining fiscal policy, tax expenditure analysis, or mineral beneficiation policy).
• An expression of interest (one page), including proposed approach and, where relevant, proposed country case set and coverage by team member if submitting as a team.

NOTE: Incomplete applications will be automatically disqualified. Only those candidates IISD wishes to interview will be contacted.