In May 2018, the EITI Board agreed that Togo had made meaningful progress in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard. See Board decision 2018-24/BC-249.
In this second Validation, the EITI International Secretariat has assessed the progress made in addressing the seven corrective actions established by the EITI Board following the first Validation. See more under background below.
Timeline of Validation and related materials
- 8 November 2019: Validation commenced
- 25 November 2019 - 9 February 2020: Stakeholder consultations
- 3 June 2020: Draft assessment sent to the MSG for comments
- 22 July 2020 - Comments from the MSG
- 12 August 2020 - Final assessment
Validation Committee Review
- 4 September 2020 - VC Recommendation to the Board, Board Circular 295
- 11 September 2020 - Board decision [Decision 2020-66/BC - 295], scorecard and corrective actions [English | French]
Background
The first Validation of commenced on 1 April 2017. On 8 May 2018, the EITI Board agreed that Togo had made meaningful progress in implementing the 2016 EITI Standard (Board decision 2018-24/BC-249). The Board established seven corrective actions related to:
- MSG governance (Requirement 1.4),
- EITI workplans (Requirement 1.5),
- contract transparency (Requirement 2.4),
- state participation (Requirement 2.6),
- barter agreements (Requirement 4.3),
- SOE transactions (Requirement 4.5)
- subnational transfers (Requirement 5.2).
Decision
Togo’s second Validation commenced on 8 November 2019. The Secretariat assessed the progress made in addressing the seven corrective actions established by the EITI Board. The EITI International Secretariat’s assessment is that Togo has fully addressed five of the seven corrective actions, with significant improvements on the two outstanding requirements.
Corrective actions
The EITI Board agreed the following corrective actions to be undertaken by Togo. Progress in addressing these corrective actions will be assessed in a third Validation commencing on September 2021:
In accordance with Requirement 1.4, Togo should ensure that the procedures for nominating and replacing multi-stakeholder group representatives are public and implemented in a fair, open and transparent way. In particular, the industry constituency should elaborate and publish clear nominations and representation guidelines through establishing internal regulations or terms of reference. The MSG may also wish to build capacities of civil society groups to ensure active participation in technical aspects of EITI Implementation. In anticipation of their work on systematic disclosures, the MSG is encouraged to carry out capacity building activities for its members to ensure that they provide effective oversight of all aspects of EITI disclosures in the transition to systematic disclosures, which requires revision to Article 20 of 2010 Decree creating the Togo EITI, which places the responsibility of extractives data collection on the Independent Administrator. The MSG should ensure they share responsibility for ensuring disclosures of EITI data.
In accordance with Requirement 1.5, Togo should ensure that national priorities are clearly identified and linked to clear objectives of EITI Implementation beyond reporting. The MSG should also ensure that ongoing activities towards reforms in key areas such as contract transparency and systematic disclosures are included in the work plan. The MSG is encouraged to include plans to address legal and regulatory obstacles to implementation, as well as capacity-building activities to ensure effective oversight of the EITI process Togo is encouraged to strengthen processes for constituency coordination on the development of the EITI work plan and ensure that the broader government, industry, and civil society constituencies are consulted on future updates of the work plans. Togo may wish to publish more regular updates on work plan execution to reflect the detail with which the MSG and secretariat track implementation. This could further support the MSG’s efforts to reach out to prospective donors to support specific work plan activities.
