Debbie Prasad, MAAPPS // Feb 20, 2o15
My country report was on Myanmar, and as they are new to the EITI, I was able to gather a lot of information regarding their progress in becoming a candidate country. It seems that they are very excited about the EITI and are working hard towards greater transparency in the extractive industry.
Along with finding about out Myanmar’s resources, an important part of the report was to focus on sub-national reporting. In the case of Myanmar, there is a lot of talk of local reporting, but to date, there is no real articulated plan for such reporting.
What is confusing to me as a researcher, is the fact that there are training sessions being currently held regarding sub-national reporting, but I have not been able to find evidence of what type of sub-national reporting procedures are being delivered to trainees. In addition to this, what is a little concerning in terms of transparency is the fact that, although may have been a reconciler appointed, I have not been able to identify who the reconciler is for the national reports.
The intriguing thing about Myanmar’s participation in the EITI is that although they (on the surface) are complying with the rules of transparency by producing reports, indicating work plans, and holding training sessions- important details are missing in the reports. Names of reconcilers are missing, articulated plans for sub-national plans are missing, and interestingly enough, on official MEITI published materials, indications civil society displeasure resulting in boycotting the EITI, are missing.
In the course of communicating with members of civil society and members of the MEITI, I was given conflicting opinions of the EITI. While the MEITI member claimed that there were sub-national reporting training sessions planned for February/March of 2015, at the same time, a civil society member voiced that they would be boycotting the MEITI because of human rights abuses in the extractive industry.
Until now, I believed that one was able to find a wealth of information through literature research, but with this experience, I truly feel that field work is valuable and necessary. I think that a site visit to Myanmar would be extremely helpful in assessing what is actually happening on the ground. So I end with saying….road trip to Myanmar anyone???