Simon Taylor

Simon Taylor is the co-founder and director of Global Witness, and launched Global Witness’ oil and corruption campaign in 1999. This work began the global call for transparency and accountability for the oil, gas and mining sectors, around the relationship between extractive industry companies and the people who live in resource-rich countries – people who are, more often than not, desperately poor. Exposing corruption in these sectors led to Global Witness’ conception of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Campaign, which Simon co-launched in 2002 with other NGOs. PWYP’s interests have expanded from a focus on revenue streams to the wider extractive industry governance framework, including transparency of contracts and their fiscal terms, disclosure of the beneficial owners of companies, environmental impact disclosure and genuine free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). As a movement, PWYP is moving from transparency to accountability.