New research identifies key factors enabling EITI to improve government transparency, but finds few improvements in accountability prior to the 2013 Standard.
Newly released research suggests that the EITI helps to improve government transparency when two core conditions are in place: First, non-governmental actors (i.e., civil society and the private sector) must be treated as full and equal partners in EITI decision-making and implementation. Second,
“One who climbs a good tree, gets a good push”. In Ghana, our elders refer to this proverb to garner support for continuity of progress.
Ghana has made significant strides in extractive industry governance, despite the numerous challenges it faces as a resource-rich country. Nonetheless, there is room for improvement. As the new government assumes office today, unmasking the real owners of extractive companies will remain key in the government’s quest to curb corruption.
How the EITI will contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals
Before joining EITI, I worked on the UN intergovernmental negotiations on post-2015 development agenda, or what is better known today as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), for both the Norwegian government and the United Nations. The SDGs are comprehensive and cover 17 different issues such as poverty eradication, good governance, improving tax systems,
“Many of the changes and reforms the government is now pushing through are directly attributable to the work of NEITI.”
Zainab Ahmed, Nigerian Minister of Budget and Planning, EITI Board member and previous Executive Director of NEITI, at a recent call of the EITI Board’s Implementation Committee
“The EITI has identified a wide range of reforms, including on how to modernise the records for production audits and revenue collection.”
Mohamed Said Ould Ahmed, director of research and statistics at Mauritania’s Treasury, and Stephan Eggli & El Hadramy Mohamed Mahmoud, technical advisors at GIZ, on Mauritania’s efforts at mainstreaming EITI reporting.
Government extractive industries revenues present an important challenge in terms of their economic weight, their impact on the national budget and on good governance in public management more generally. In 2014,
As the extractives sector embraces increasing transparency, stakeholders face new challenges related to data proliferation, fragmentation, dispersion, and quality control. Overcoming these challenges is more important than ever to ensure efficiency and strengthen existing systems, avoid duplication, manage expectations, support evidence-based decision-making and build stakeholder trust.
A decade of transparency highlights new opportunities for accountability in the land of steppe and sky.
Fresh from a landslide victory in last June’s elections, Mongolia’s new government faces both economic headwinds and opportunities for reform.
In May 2015, the European Union (EU) adopted the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) requiring, among other things, government authorities to collect and maintain beneficial ownership (BO) information for companies incorporated in the territories of member states. This is a means of “tracing criminals who might otherwise hide their identity behind a corporate structure”, according to the AMLD.
Nine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) implementing countries in the Anglophone and Lusophone region of Africa met in Abuja in early November to plan for the implementation of beneficial ownership (BO) disclosures. At the center of the discussion was the painstaking process of planning how to reveal who stands behind oil, gas and mining companies. Ben Mellor, the UK DFID country representative to Nigeria,
How EITI can help identify and address challenges in artisanal and small-scale mining.
Artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) provides a livelihood for millions of people in several resource rich developing countries and is a major source of economic development for many rural and regional communities.
ASM is the manual extraction of minerals by artisanal and small-scale miners. The manual miners often dramatically outnumber their counterparts in the industrial sector.