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 gold mining company Oxus Gold is the 39th extractive company to become an international-level EITI Supporting Company.
The primary operations of Oxus Gold are inside Uzbekistan, where it has a 50% stake in the Amantaytau Goldfields JV (AGF) which is located in the Kyzylkum region of Uzbekistan. Total AGF ‘Proven and Probable’ reserves were 2,839,000 ozs of gold and 6,739,000 ozs of silver (of which half are attributable to Oxus), under JORC classification.
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.
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.
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.
Critical Resource, a specialist firm providing advice on sustainability and stakeholder issues, has on their site a 60 second Q&A with Jonas Moberg, Head of the EITI Secretariat.
"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.
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.
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."
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Compliant Countries
To become Compliant, the country needs to complete validation process and meet all of the Validation Indicators. All Candidate countries must complete validation within two years.
Candidate Countries
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