The 39th Board meeting took place last week in the city that hosts the EITI International Secretariat.
EITI: A platform for progress
The 2018 Progress Report was launched on the eve of the Oslo Board meeting. This year’s edition highlights the impact the EITI has had across the 51 member countries. The report presents EITI policy on issues such as commodity trading, state-owned enterprises, beneficial ownership, environmental reporting and gender equality. Overall, the report summarises progress to improve transparency and governance of natural resources in the EITI countries around the world.
In addition to launching the 2018 EITI Progress Report, EITI Chair Fredrik Reinfeldt hosted a reception the day before the Board meeting. The Norwegian Development Minister, Nikolai Astrup said at the reception that the EITI is an example of the kind of initiative that is needed to achieve global development goals. He mentioned that good governance is vital for promoting sustainable economic growth and that the EITI has a proven track record of improving the governance of natural resource wealth.
Moving from reports to reporting
The EITI Board made a groundbreaking decision on the first day of the Board meeting that will change how EITI implementation will work: the Board agreed to make systematic disclosures of extractives data through government and company systems the default expectation from countries. This means that instead of producing annual EITI Reports, countries are now expected to disclose the same data through government and company websites, annual reports and other means of reporting that they are already using. Many Board members welcomed this development to ensure that the EITI is embedded more into government and company systems.
Two more Asian success stories
Five countries completed the Validation process at this Board meeting: Albania, Burkina Faso, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Timor-Leste. This round of Validations showed how the process is able to highlight innovations in transparency.
Mongolia and Timor-Leste were found to have made satisfactory progress on all requirements of the Standard. They therefore joined the Philippines in having made satisfactory progress overall.
The Board also embarked on a discussion about the lessons learned from the first 21 Validations that took place in 2016 and 2017. Board members noted that over 70% of requirements had been assessed as meaningful progress or above. They highlighted that results showed that EITI implementation constituted a major driver of reforms in the extractive sector.
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