Parliamentarians and the management of the extractive industries

Table of Contents

1. What is EITI and how can parliamentarians use it?
2. The EITI as a tool for good governance.
3. How parliamentarians can be involved in the implementation of the EITI
4. Summary and next steps.

Introduction

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is a global standard to promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources. Currently, there are 51 countries implementing the EITI Standard through a national multi-stakeholder group (MSG) composed of government, industry and civil society. The EITI Standard seeks to address the key governance issues of the oil, gas and mining sectors by requiring countries and companies to disclose information on the key steps in the governance of oil, gas and mining revenues:

Disclosures through the EITI are useful in providing information on the extractive sector and highlighting gaps in government systems and regulatory frameworks. All of this information form the basis for recommendations for reforms that the national multi-stakeholder group collectively formulates and should ideally propose to policy makers including parliamentarians.

Parliaments are traditionally ascribed three core functions: to represent, to legislate and to oversee. One way to picture how parliaments interact with the extractive industries (EI) is to place these parliamentary core functions against the EI value chain.