Category Archives: Weekly Reflections

Lotus Ruan, MAAPPS // March 30, 2015

Having gained sufficient knowledge of EITI national and subnational implementation in different countries, we’ve finally moved to subnational EITI reporting in Mongolia. While my knowledge of Mongolia is limited, a few weeks’ research has led to me to a better understanding of the overall Mongolia’s performance of EITI subnational reporting. I am starting to see the similarities and differences between Mongolia and the countries my team and I studied, which prompts me to come to the conclusion that what Mongolia needs the most for subnational reporting is not government or corporates’ involvement but theirs and the public’s better understandings of subnational EITI reports.

The status quo is that Mongolia is a leading EITI implementer. According to the EITI report in 2013, the number of companies participating in EITI in Mongolia is more than any other country in the world. However, Mongolia’s full potential as a supplier of relevant and useable extractives information is yet to be realized.

All Mongolians are affected directly directly and indirectly by the extractive sector, both positively and negatively. So citizens and corporates have a vested interest in knowing what taxes and royalties companies are paying to national, provincial and local government, who the beneficial owners are, what they are licensed to mine for. However,  a weakness in subnational EITI in Mongolia is that concerned individuals and companies, especially in the rural area, lack sufficient knowledge to understand key terms and budgetary charts in these reports, not to mention to realize how such reports could affect social and economic benefits. To me, transparency in itself is not enough; publishing data, however transparent or large amount it is (the EITI Mongolia report in 2012 is over 1,000 pages), is not enough. If the public, especially the extractive communities, does not know how to read the report and what those financial sheets mean, then these EITI reports will be much less effective in stirring a public conversation and engaging local communicates in holding the country’s government and corporates accountable.

In other words, transparency lies in the understanding of the data. While EITI reporting assists and has been proven quite successful in strengthening accountability and good governance, helping individuals and corporates in local communities understand EITI reports can lead to public supervision and contribute to the prevention of corruption or conflicts based around the extractive sectors. Considering the fact Mongolia is playing a relatively leading role in both national and subnational reporting, what our team should focus on is not merely raising public awareness but utilizing existing local expertise to walk the public through these information-loaded EITI reports.

Jonathan Brasnett, MAAPPS // March 29, 2015

Bulgan Batdorj, MASc candidate in Mining Engineering // March 27, 2015

In my other class, the lecturer described the companies CSR activities as a teenage sex. “Everybody says that they are doing, but just a few really are and those who do it, do it rather badly”. The same can be said about the Sub-national reporting of EITI. And the difference between the teenage sex and the CSR or SNR is that there is no-one that can tell us how to do it right, rather we have find the unique ways that works for the countries and communities.

There are 48 countries submit national reports to EITI, all with mandate to report on SNR in a near future.  There are obvious demands from the locals of those countries to apply the SNR but the issue is that there is not a single proven mechanism to get there. The differences of political, social, environmental climates are significant at the local levels. But many proclaim that SNR EITI will help them to resolve the conflicts, or bring a development. But these issues could not be resolved without accountability from the government and the local government.

Many countries wants to be part of EITI with the hope that this will help attract the foreign investments to the country which can fuel the country’s development. In addition, transparency’s objective is to trigger an accountability and good governance. But, despite this theory, still some of the EITI countries struggle with domestic politics, resource nationalism, corruption, and poverty. There are many variables that play and without strong (domestic) political will to embrace the accountability the “EITI compliant country status” will not serve you as the ticket out of resource curse.

Lotus Ruan, MAAPPS // March 25, 2015

In my last blog post, I discussed one possible motivation for Mongolia to push forward subnational EITI reporting. Here are some other reasons that why subnational reporting matters to Mongolia and especially its citizens and companies in the countryside.

All Mongolians are affected directly directly and indirectly by the extractive sector, both positively and negatively. So citizens and companies, especially customers of Khan Bank who care about their financial performance, have an vested interest in knowing what taxes and royalties companies are paying to national, provincial and local government, who the beneficial owners are, what they are licensed to mine for.

To companies and investors in particular, subnational EITI reporting provide them with a clearer assessment of local investment climate. While EITI reporting assists and has been proven quite successful in strengthening accountability and good governance, helping individuals and corporates in local communities understand EITI reports can lead to public supervision and contribute to the prevention of corruption or conflicts based around the extractive sectors.

Debbie Prasad, MAAPPS // March 25, 2015

As the semester nears an end, it’s time for a bit of reflection. I had written my first blog post with a lot of excitement and a lot of questions about Mongolia. During the course of the project, I have been able to get some answers to my questions- even despite the fact that we did not get an opportunity to visit Mongolia.

For instance, I had asked what some cultural norms of Mongolia are? Well, I now know that there is a major nomadic and  herder culture in Mongolia. I had also asked what Mongolians identify with most, and I’ve learned that Chinggis Khan is a major component of Mongolian identity. When wondering about population demographics, I have learned that approximately 10% of Mongolian society is employed in the mining industry, even though mining contributes to 18% of the GDP. The low numbers for local employment in mining are expected to contribute to a shortage on mining workers in the near future.

I have learned a lot during the course of this semester, mostly about teamwork and about what positive contributions a diverse background of students can make towards such a project as this.

Our task was to look at sub-national EITI reporting in Mongolia, and although we are still trying to find some distinct trends, we have been able to come up with some creative policy suggestions on how to engage local society with the EITI. The key seems to be local engagement, and how this could be more prevalent in Mongolia. In order for sub-national reporting to matter, it is important for all Mongolians to be aware of how significant mining is in their country. Awareness and engagement is key. It is only then that we will be able to engage all of society into caring about transparency in extractive industry reporting.