Carlos da Costa, PhD Mining Engineering // Feb 11, 2015
The Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) is a national domestication of a global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Implemented in 48 countries across the world, the EITI has as its mandate the promotion of sustainable development in resource rich-countries. This is pursued through the introduction and institutionalization of a regime of good governance in the management of revenue derived from extractive industries. Central to such good governance regime, in this respect, is the dual process of transparent disclosures and the enhanced capacity of citizens to hold government to account. Ultimately, the overall aim is to maximize people’s welfare and drastically reduce poverty through a governance process that is robustly participatory.
EITI’s basic framework focuses on free and unstinted disclosure of taxes, royalties, etc. paid by extractive industries companies to public coffers in resource rich countries and honest acknowledgement in complete disclosure by government of such countries of what was actually received from the companies on behalf of the people. A reconciler is then engaged to verify and certify the figures disclosed from both sides and reconcile any discrepancies between them. A report of this exercise is then written by the reconciler, then published and disseminated widely, in a comprehensive manner by the multi-stakeholder group (MSG). The purpose of this process is to empower the citizens of resource-rich countries, with incontestable data and information, to hold their governments to account in the way the revenues are managed and expended. This aim cannot be realized without a full, equal and free participation of civil society organizations in the entire process.
EITI’s structure, from a top down perspective, can be viewed as a consortium of governments of supporting countries, private corporate bodies, producing companies, investors, and a coalition of international plus national civil society organizations operating under a single umbrella, known as “Publish What You Pay.” At the national level, when a country joins the EITI Standard which requires it to establish a MSG together with companies and civil society. In Ghana, for example, it is known as the National Steering Committee. While the composition of the national MSG, in terms of the balance among the stakeholders, may differ from country to country, a common feature is that companies, civil society organizations and government are represented on it, and participate as equal partners.
Through such groups civil society organizations play an important role in implementing EITI at both national and international levels. At the international level, it was civil society organizations that provided the initial impetus for the creation of the EITI. Today, it is the coalition of national and international civil society organizations that form the back bone of the maintenance of high standards in its implementation as well as the validation of the application of EITI principles and criteria to specific national situations.
At the national level, it is civil society organizations, not government, and not companies, that are best suited to organize the citizens, enlighten them, train them, source funding for them, inform them and help to protect them as they strive, and take action to hold government to account. At both levels, civil society organizations are confronted with a dilemma arising from their dual mandate. At one level, civil society organizations, as members of, and participants in MSGs, are policy makers and supervisors of policies made pursuant to the implementation of EITI at the national level. At another level, civil society organizations are free to monitor and evaluate independently, the implementation of the EITI principles and criteria. The dilemma arises from the necessity to strike a balance between the role of the participant with that of the observer, monitor, and evaluator. As participant, civil society organizations share equal collective responsibility for the policies and actions of the MSG. But as observer, monitor or assessor, they play the role of critics, distancing themselves from the policies and actions of the MSG, and detaching themselves from the process, in order to write and publish “shadow reports” on the process.
Thus, when success is achieved, all stakeholders, including civil society organizations, claim credit, when success is either slow in coming or is not so manifest, one stakeholder jumps ship, stands ashore and pronounces a verdict while the rest of the group is still on deck. How can an MSG resolve such a dilemma? Through sustained training on team building within the context of an MSG for the implementation of EITI. Without a functional team, no MSG can succeed in implementing EITI at either the national or subnational level. To achieve such harmony the first step should be to gain deeper knowledge and acquire the skills for team work in a multi-stakeholder environment.