Khuska

  • Social Startup Proposal

  • Timeline: 06/2019 - 12/2020

  • Keywords: land use planning, social conflicts, extractivism, rural economic development

Most socio-environmental conflicts in Peru occur between extractive industries and rural Indigenous settlements. Population centers in areas influenced by extractive activities face enormous migratory pressures, and without a strategic vision for investing extractive revenues (canon), their disorganized growth is accelerated.

In 2019, half of Peru’s early-stage mining projects were paralyzed due to social conflicts, and most had not passed the pre-feasibility stage.

Khuska proposes land use planning as a tool for managing social conflicts by introducing two key elements into the current situation:

1. A Land Use Plan aimed at guiding spatial expansion, investment of extractive revenues, and economic development.

2. An Impact Investment Fund designed to generate financial returns for investors while enhancing sustainable rural economic development.

To achieve this, the Khuska Model was designed as a territorial planning consultancy for extractive companies that materializes rural development projects through private investment. It promotes investor participation by offering both financial returns and positive socio-environmental impacts. This operational process consists of four steps, each crucial for the success of the next:

1. Land Use Plan: A document that diagnoses and provides recommendations on the community’s economic flows, livelihoods, and built environment. It also includes rural investment projects to boost non-extractive economic activities among rural entrepreneurs.

2. Investment Project Feasibility: A document detailing the required working capital—such as costs for infrastructure construction, equipment or machinery purchases, land acquisition, training, consulting, etc.—along with project timelines and financial profitability analyses.

3. Impact Investor Outreach: Through a web-based crowdlending platform, evaluations of rural investment projects are published to attract individuals and companies interested in impact investing.

4. Impact Investment and Monitoring: Once the necessary funding is secured, the project is launched, with its progress and social impact monitored through quarterly reports featuring key indicators. This stage concludes with the investor’s exit upon achieving the expected financial return.

Crowdlending Web Platform Concept

Khuska significa “juntos” en quechua ya que profesa la reciprocidad de ser un vínculo integrador entre el gobierno local, la empresa extractiva y la sociedad civil.