The Africa EITI Conference on Beneficial Ownership Transparency had a powerful opening on Wednesday 31 October, with speeches from HE Macky Sall, President of Senegal and HE Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone, as well as other high-level government officials. The range of the parallel session topics varied from illicit financial flows to politically exposed persons.
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,
The challenge now is to turn the outrage into change.
Beneficial ownership and review of contracts as key areas for the EITI in Afghanistan
What role does the EITI play in revealing hidden owners?
The EITI is a standard for countries with oil, gas and minerals. The 51 EITI countries require all companies extracting oil, gas and minerals to publish what they pay in taxes and royalties and the government commits itself to publish what it receives, including other key information about the sector. The findings from early implementation concluded that such reporting was a good start, but that it was not enough.
A register with who actually owns and controls companies in the UK will be publicly available for citizens.
12 countries participated in the EITI Beneficial Ownership Asia and Pacific Regional Workshop in Manila
The EITI, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) hosted the Beneficial Ownership Regional Workshop in Manila on 19-20 March. Around 70 participants from 10 EITI countries in the region were represented, including Armenia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste,
Four lessons learned from the journey towards beneficial ownership transparency in Ukraine
Considering Ukraine’s pioneering efforts on extractives transparency, it is hardly surprising that Kyiv was chosen to host the 42ndEITI Board meeting on 27-28 February. Ukraine was the first country to establish a publicly accessible beneficial ownership register and officially become part of the Global Beneficial Ownership Register launched by
Louise Russell-Prywata is the program manager of the OpenOwnership pilot program, which supports data publishers in national governments and multinational institutions to publish high quality, highly usable beneficial owernship data.
The Kyrgyz Republic is one of over 50 countries who have committed, through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard, to publishing the beneficial owners of extractives license holders by 1 January 2020.
Key conference facts2.5 days250+ participants30+ countries 40+ organisations60+ experts10 technical sessions
The Opening up Ownership Africa conference was the largest gathering of beneficial ownership transparency practitioners yet.
Conference co-host and keynote speaker, President of Senegal, HE Macky Sall started by highlighting action on past commitments
