Author Archives: christophercarter

Corporate Social Responsibility and Mining in Mongolia

Alexandre Bastien // March 25th 2014

The number of donation by the mining companies in Mongolia is an amazing issue. The Boroo Gold LLC is the second biggest donor despite the fact that this foreign own company remains a marginal player in the Mongolian context. This is indeed an inspiring example of the commitment of a foreign company to share the benefits of its mining exploitation with the local population. This kind of behavior should be emulated by order companies since it creates a good basis to convince the population that the mining industry could improve their life.

This company has developed over the year a vast CSR program. The different component of this commitment to local communities include participation in the EITI, an environmental management system to deal with the negative externalities produced by their activities, a health and safety code to prevent an tragic event and a community development plan. This latter part of the CSR tries to maximize the benefits for communities by hiring locally, financing schools and other type of public goods. If you want more information on their social involvement in Mongolia or in Kyrgyzstan you can visit their website at

http://www.centerragold.com/corporate-responsibility/community-development

EITI Mongolia Civil Society Participation

Upon further inspection, who are the players in Mongolia’s NGO landscape are how are they involved in EITI transparency?

Solongo Bumtseren and Lauren Galacia // March 22nd 2014

More than 30 non-government organization (NGOs) are involved in the EITI process, including representation on the National Council and Multi-Stakeholders Working Group.

Organizations represented on the National Council include:

Ariun Suvarga, Human Rights and Development Center, Mongolian Association of Environmental Protection, Mongolian Civic Council of Environment, Mongolian Council of Environment, My Mongolia Land, Open Society Forum, Steps without Borders, and Transparency Foundation.

Organizations represented on the Multi-Stakeholders Working Group include:

Baigal Ekhiin Arval San, Mongolian Association of Environmental Protection, Mongolian Council of Environment, My Mongolia Land, Onon Ulz River Residentials, Open Society Forum, Owners of Khuvsgul Lake, Steps without Borders, Transparency Foundation, and  Zorig Foundation.

EITI Mongolia could consider expanding its coalition to include additional groups that may have an interest in natural resource management. For example, working groups in other EITI countries have included members that specialize in youth, gender, and disability, as well as representatives of professional associations such as journalists, lawyers, miners, and engineers.

 

NGO and Sub-National Participation

Revenue Watch International, working with the World Bank, has provided capacity building training for participating NGOs. The Open Society Forum and its partners have completed an assessment of the 2006-2011 EITI reports and have provided policy analysis and recommendations to policymakers.

In 2013, Publish What You Pay monitored the implementation of Government Resolution #222 and provided guidelines for establishing EITI Sub Councils. Sub Councils are regional steering committees consisting of members of regional government, NGOs, and companies that would promote transparency at the aimag and soum levels. Their main responsibilities would be to improve local citizen awareness about EITI, encourage civic participation, and strengthen communication networks. They would provide an annual report that includes disclosure of all licenses issued in the soum and agreements between companies and the local government, and they would organize activities such as an annual open forum for the local people.

No Sub Councils have been established yet because of budgetary issues, however, they have been the subject of ongoing discussions. Some concerns have been raised about Sub Council membership dependency on local government (the number of government members are disproportionate to civil organizations and companies) but there is general agreement that focusing activities towards local levels i.e. establishing Sub Council would contribute to more effective implementation of EITI in the country.

 

Dissemination of Information to the Public

Information from the EITI reports is made available on the EITI Mongolia website and distributed among Working Group members. To raise general awareness, EITI has organized provincial outreach events, presented at trade fairs, and participated in public meetings. There have a number of suggestions of ways that the information in EITI reports could be more accessible and meaningful to the general public. These include: creating summary reports using more simple language, providing information about companies operating in each soum, and providing information about payments by project.   

Media participation related to EITI is comparably weak, with only periodic reporting of EITI on news, radio, and television. EITI’s 2013 Communication Plan included many ideas for improving media participation, such as developing special TV and radio programs about EITI and broadcasting them through central and local channels. Another idea was using social and mobile media to communicate with public regarding reporting process (for example, key messages would be delivered to citizens via their cell phones.) However, none of these ideas have been implemented yet. Media participation in EITI is still in a beginning stage and has not significantly improved over 7 years of EITI implementation in Mongolia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 Reflection : Understanding the Stakeholders

Ben Collins // March 16th 2014

After an extensive class discussion and a flurry of emails, we decided that we would focus on trying to improve the communication of the EITI report.  We had a lengthy discussion on what we felt were the most important aspects coming out of the report.

Eventually to help clearly communicate them.  Discussions took place on creating a 2 page summary sheet for each report, again to help highlight the important insights.  The difficult part is that different stakeholder could have different thoughts on which aspects of the report are most important.  We determined that a survey sent to various EITI stakeholders (NGOs, governments and companies), would help us frame the most important aspects to include in a 2 page summary.

We are focussing on finding out the information from the EITI that is most important to the Mongolian people.  Thus, our survey is designed and tailored to NGOs and governmental organizations working with and representing the Mongolian people.

 

Over the last week as a class we were able to brainstorm survey questions and create a draft of our online survey.  The class also divided up into a number of groups: communications, surveying, visual media and report writing.  The next steps are to create a list of who to contact for the survey and to continue to learn and gather information about the EITI report in Mongolia.

Week 1 Reflection: Unraveling MEITI

Garth Thomson // March 10th 2014

With the completion of individual EITI country reports, the class has now transitioned focus to the EITI in Mongolia (MEITI). The MEITI reconciliation reports are complex documents encompassing a broad range of issues. Our team’s first challenge is to review the data available and identify a manageable scope of issues that we can effectively tackle throughout the remainder of the term.

Brainstorming sessions in class, followed by a flurry of email activity through the week, have indicated that the MEITI is a complex reporting framework with many potential areas of focus. Given our own team’s difficulty in defining a single problem to tackle, it would appear that similar challenges are likely experienced by those consuming the reports in Mongolia.

 

The MEITI reports are comprehensive reporting documents but are not easily absorbed, especially by those who lack a firm background in the issues addressed. Identifying the most important segments of the report, and turning them into a summary document easily digested any Mongolian who may be interested in the country’s extractive sector is an ideal outcome.

In order to pinpoint what these key issues are, the team intends to contact in-country stakeholders who can lend their insight. By surveying a range of Mongolian stakeholders, we will attempt to identify which segments of MEITI are most valuable to the people on the ground.

Now, to distill this for civic society…

 

The most suitable communication platform for the distribution of this data will also be addressed by our team. In order for the MEITI data to be effectively consumed, it must be easily available to a wide range of interested stakeholders.

Nigerias EITI Report Visualized

The team has reviewed low-cost mass-communication platforms such as printed pamphlets or radio, and will further refine a communication strategy with the best potential for widespread penetration at the course progresses.