Strategic Prioritization of Mining Policies in Colombia Through the Igor Hybrid Framework

Abstract

Strategic decision-making in the mining sector requires navigating complex trade-offs across social, environmental, economic, and governance dimensions—often under conditions of deep uncertainty. Traditional prioritization methods, while valuable, tend to operate in isolation and may fall short in addressing such multifaceted challenges. This paper introduces IGOR (Importance–Governance–Robustness), an integrated methodology designed to support the prioritization of public policy actions in uncertain and data-scarce contexts. IGOR combines four complementary tools: the Importance-Governance Matrix (IGM), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Tornado analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation. Together, they provide a robust framework that balances strategic relevance, institutional feasibility, and resilience to future uncertainties. The methodology was applied to Colombia’s National Mining Development Plan 2024-2025 (NMDP), evaluating over 100 actions across strategic objectives and lines. Criteria were developed collaboratively with national stakeholders to ensure contextual relevance and technical soundness. Results demonstrate IGOR’s capacity to generate transparent, structured prioritization scores, enabling the identification of high-impact, feasible, and resilient actions. Sensitivity analysis validated the robustness of prioritization outcomes under varying stakeholder preferences, reinforcing confidence in the results. IGOR emerges as a decision support tool that is both rigorous and adaptable. It offers a replicable approach for improving public policy planning in the mining sector and can be extended to other fields facing similar complexity and uncertainty.

Keywords: Decision support systems, Mining development strategies, Stakeholder analysis, IGOR methodology, Multicriteria decision analysis, Policy prioritization