EITI Announcements

The United States and the international community must do more to prevent mismanagement and corruption in developing countries newly enriched by oil export revenues, according to a new Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff report. The findings of this report will be the subject of a panel discussion and reception at SAIS in Washington DC 20 November.

The report, entitled "The Petroleum and Poverty Paradox: Assessing U.S. and International Community Efforts to Fight the Resource Curse," was prepared by Lugar's committee staff based on on-site inspections to a number of oil-producing countries in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. The findings include that a key tool to fight the so-called "resource curse" is more disclosure, or transparency, of the fees and royalties paid by international oil companies to the governments of developing countries. 

The report makes a number of recommendations for the new administration, including that the U.S. make combating the resource curse a high-profile issue in diplomacy and foreign policy. It recommends that the industrial G-8 countries do more to encourage their corporations and financial institutions to promote disclosure and accountability in oil exporting nations, and that the World Bank and other aid donors make anti-corruption and fiscal management programs a key part of their lending to oil producing
nations.

The full press release from the lauch of the report can be read on Senator Lugar's website. The report itself is available in TEXT (59K) or PDF (3.2M) format.

29-30 October the EITI Board met in Athens, Greece. The Board discussed the implementation of the initiative in each Candidate country and their progress towards validation, agreed on the Workplan for 2009, and prepared for the EITI Global Conference in Doha 16-18 February 2009. Minutes will soon be made available on this website.

During the week other meetings also took place

• 28 October the Management Committee of the World Bank's programme for support of EITI implementation met.
• 29 October, the International EITI Secretariat convened a meeting of international financial institutions (IFIs) that have endorsed the EITI.
• Many EITI Board members participated in the International Anti-Corruption Conference that took place right after the Board meeting.

13 EITI implementing countries are part of the the International Organisation of La Francophonie, OIF, which brings together 70 countries around the French language. The OIF has recommended the use of the EITI as an international standard of transparency. This recommendation was adopted at the twelfth OIF summit that was held 17-19 October 2008 in Quebec.

In the Quebec Declaration, La Francophonie acknowledged the importance of transparency and good governance in the extractive industries (No. 39). The signatory countries undertook to encourage wider implementation of the EITI, and to support candidates from Francophone countries (No. 40).

L’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, OIF, qui regroupe 56 pays membres et 14 observateurs ayant en commun la langue française, a recommandé l'utilisation de l'ITIE comme norme internationale de transparence lors de son XIIe sommet entre le 17 et 19 octobre 2008 à Québec.

L’OIF et ses institutions œuvrent au service de la paix, de la coopération et du développement durable dans le monde francophone et ailleurs. Les chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement qui se sont rendus au Canada, ont adopté à la fin de cette rencontre la « Déclaration de Québec ». Ce document contient des engagements dans de différents domaines. La session sur la « Gouvernance et la solidarité économique » reconnaît l’importance de la transparence et de la bonne gouvernance dans le secteur des industries d’extraction (n° 39). Les pays signataires s’engagent à cet égard à encourager une adhésion plus large à l’ITIE, notamment par l’appui aux candidatures des pays francophones (n° 40) et la promotion des principes de la responsabilité sociale et environnementale des entreprises (n° 41). Cette référence directe à l’ITIE dans la Déclaration de Québec illustre l’importance grandissante de l’Initiative dans le monde francophone : 13 pays qui mettent en œuvre l’ITIE sont membres ou membres associés de l'OIF.

"Despite the persistence of Africa’s natural and man-made horrors, the latest trend is cheeringly positive", The Economist writes in a Leader article. Further it writes: "Another promising new mechanism is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a voluntary code that a score of African countries have adopted, with governments and foreign firms accounting openly for their dealings."

Representatives from 21 Candidate Countries met in Oslo from 7-9 October for the first EITI National Coordinator Meeting. The meeting was organised in response to strong demand from implementers for information exchange and peer learning regarding EITI implementation. In particular, there is a pressing need to accelerate activities with respect to the EITI’s Validation requirements.

Another key theme of the meeting was to strengthen EITI Communications so that the information generated by the EITI process is accessible and comprehensible to a wide audience. The meeting also addressed implementing country constituency issues ahead of the forthcoming EITI Conference in Doha. The meeting was hosted by the EITI Secretariat, with financial support from the Government of Norway. The Secretariat plans to convene a second meeting of national coordinators in 2009.

EITI Chairman, Dr Peter Eigen met with the Iraqi Deputy Prime, Dr Barham Ahmad Salih, and the Minister for Oil, Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani, in Baghdad on 6 October. The Ministers reaffirmed their strong commitment to the initiative and their intent to progress towards revenue transparency by publishing monthly reports of their oil revenue.

Ministers Salih and al-Shahristani confirmed their appointment of Ms Nihad Ahmed Mousa as the national EITI coordinator. Dr Eigen, accompanied by EITI Regional Director Mr Eddie Rich, met with Ms Mousa who is the Director-General in the Ministry of Oil.

Massive challenges face the Government of Iraq (currently third from bottom in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index). Security, political and regional tensions (especially around the oil sector), and low government capacity, all make the initiative both more difficult, but also more important, to implement. This point was reinforced by the members of international community and civil society with whom Dr Eigen and Mr Rich also met.

The World Bank has offered to provide technical support to help Iraq to put together an implementation workplan.

For more information about the implementation of the EITI in Iraq, contact Regional Director Eddie Rich.

The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held 24 September a hearing on Resource Curse or Blessing? Africa's Management of its Extractive Industries. In his opening statement Senator Feingold said "The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is one of several international efforts to fight the resource curse, and the report urges the administration to give the EITI more vigorous support."

Also, Feingold said in his opening statement: "The impact of this curse is not limited to the resource-rich countries themselves. The United States and other developed countries are also affected. (...) It exacerbates global poverty, which can be a seedbed for terrorism, it dulls the effect of our foreign assistance, it empowers autocrats and dictators, and it can crimp world petroleum supplies by breeding instability. (...) The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is one of several international efforts to fight the resource curse, and the report urges the administration to give the EITI more vigorous support. It also urges the oil, gas and mining companies, which often express support for transparency, to do more to encourage it in the countries where they operate."

Witnesses at the hearing were Todd Moss Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Paul Collier, Professor at the University of Oxford and David Goldwyn, President ofGoldwyn International Strategies, and Simon Taylor, Director of Global Witness.

Transcripts of the statements can be found a the US Senate web page http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2008/hrg080924a.html