Civil society experience of EITI implementation and future challenges

1
Civil society experience of EITI implementation
and future challenges
www.globalwitness.orgwww.publishwhatyoupay.org 1
9 October 2006
global witness
2
EITI and CSO participation theory and practice

• CSO participation is enshrined within EITI
  criterion 5 Civil society is actively
  engaged as a participant in the design,
  monitoring and evaluation of this process and
  contributes towards public debate. The
  multi-stakeholder nature of EITI is to be
  operationalised through the national action plan.

• Validation of both candidate and compliant
  countries contains specific indicators on
  whether criterion 5 has been met in all stages of
  implementation, from sign-up to dissemination
  of the final audited EITI report

• Sign-up stage the validator will ascertain if
  the govt has committed to work with others
  stakeholders a costed, time-bound action plan
  must explain how government will ensure
  their involvement, particularly CSOs.

3
CSO participation preparation stage

• Selection of multi-stakeholder group (MSG)
  overseeing implementation must be open
  transparent. Stakeholders must be able to operate
  as part of the committee including by
  liaising with their constituency groups and
  other stakeholders free of undue influence or
  coercion. CSOs must be operationally, and in
  policy terms, independent of government and/or
  the private sector. MSG must agree with
  selection auditors, reconciler with
  reporting templates

Evidence of full involvement of CSOs also
includes
 
Outreach by the MSG to wider civil society
groups, including communications (media,
website, letters) with civil society groups
and/or coalitions (e.g. a local Publish What
You Pay coalition), informing them of the
governments commitment to implement EITI, and
the central role of companies and civil
society.
Actions to address capacity constraints
affecting civil society participation,
whether undertaken by government, civil society
or companies.
4
CSO participation dissemination stage

• EITI report must be made available in a way
  that is publicly accessible,
• comprehensive and comprehensible.

Evidence of this includes
Producing paper copies of the Report,
distributing them to a wide range of key
stakeholders, including civil society, companies,
the media and others on-line publication and
publicising its web location to key stakeholders.
Organising outreach events.
 
Ensuring the Report is comprehensive,
including all information gathered as part of
the validation process and all recommendations
for improvement.
Ensuring the Report is comprehensible,
including by ensuring it is written in a
clear, accessible style and in appropriate
languages.
5
CSO participation experience to date

• Eye on EITI report survey of 16/21 pilot
  countries. 14 recommendations. Patchiness of
  implementation only 2 countries produced fully
  audited reconciled reports (Nigeria
  Azerbaijan). Need for validation process

Key recommendations political and technical
levels
Political how to ensure undemocratic
governments operationalise active CSO
participation. Focus is the ability of CSO
representatives to participate freely and
actively, ranging from issues of lack of capacity
(which can be also down to inefficiency in
allocating adequate resources) to active
intimidation and harrassment of activists (Congo
B, DRC, EG etc.)
 
Technical/financial capacity building
financial support issue of aggregation vs.
disaggregation.
Need to both mainstream EITI into other
mechanisms such as IFI and bilateral lending
programmes, international accounting standards,
and need to go beyond EITI to look at making
whole chain of revenue generation, collection
and utilisation transparent and accountable.
6
Eye on EITI key recommendations

• Need for political champion at national level
  (Oby Ezwekwesili in Nigeria) and for proper
  funding of implementation through appropriate
  budget support. Institutionalize EITI in
  statutory law (NEITI Bill) for continuity.

Genuine involvement of CSOs in MSG (e.g. Ghana
CSO input to reporting formats resulted in
sub-national level publication and specific
expenditures) lack of parity on MSG, lack of
budget for travel lack of information
exchange organisation etc. Genuinely
independent CSOs self-selection vs. govt
selection or expanded definition of CSOs
(Cameroon, Kazakhstan, WB action in forming
informal MSG in Peru)
Protection of CSO activists participating
governments should formally endorse this
Board to investigate reports intimidation all
stakeholders to use diplomatic and other
pressure to ensure HRs activists respected.
 
Capacity building and financial support must be
planned (national action plans) adequately
budgeted for also implemented in time to allow
CSOs to participate as equal partners with
other stakeholders. Role of IFIs, bilaterals
EITI Secretariat
7
Eye on EITI key recommendations

• Disaggregation of data by company payment
  type in EITI reports. This provides civil
  society with the information about revenues that
  individual actors are paying to enable
  comparison with receipts. Azerbaijan
  publication of aggregated data means PWYP could
  not analyse what each company supposed to
  pay under PSAs discrepancies cannot be fully
  understood and investigated. Companies
  disclosing individually in Nigeria.

Mainstreaming of EITI/revenue transparency
standards in IFI and bilateral
non-humanitarian lending policies Publish What
You Earn (IFC EBRD commitments to
disclosure provisions as condition of project
lending) stock market listing requirements
international accounting standards for EI sector
companies.
 
Go beyond EITI to look at transparency of
access to resources contract and
transparency. Contracts without disclosure
fiscal terms in contracts impossible to judge
whether companies are paying correct amounts (IMF
Guide to RRT). Need to make whole budgetary
process transparent Publish What/How You
Spend