The forum's guidance for governments report focuses on the increased use of local content policies, especially as governments changed or reviewed their mining and investment codes, and how they require mining companies to use local good and services in whichever countries they operate.
It also gives advice on how countries can move away from commodity dependency, diversify their economic base, upgrade skills levels and increase employment levels.
In essence how they can foster stronger links between mineral resources and the rest of the economy by providing guidelines on which policies are required, which are appropriate and how these can be successfully implemented.
"There is no one-size-fits-all solution with local content policies. Each country has different resource endowments, different skill sets in their supply and labour force, and different infrastructure assets and investment environments," the IGF said.
The report also takes into account the need to spread critical issues across multiple ministries and requires effective coordination and coherence, and guides policy-makers towards workable "made-in-country" solutions.
The guidance also covers achieving goals in a gender-equitable way; exploring the relationship between local content policies and countries' obligations under trade and investment law; and exploring the implications of technological advances on the success of local content policies.
IGF director Greg Radford said an estimated 90% of resource-rich countries had some sort of local content policy and the success of these was especially critical in countries where there were only a few other strong sectors.
"However, it remains unclear which local content policies work best, produce results and minimise unintended consequences. Our guidance for governments takes these on-the-ground realities into account," he said.
Radford added that the success of local content policies depended on other regulations and policies, such as education, science and innovation, infrastructure and finance.
