Making a Difference: The EITI project in Mongolia

Jon Brasnett, MAAPPS // Jan 19, 2015

The EITI has been officially implemented in Mongolia since 2010 and has the potential to bring enormous structural, developmental and societal changes to the country. Unlike many other countries plagued with an abundance of natural resources, Mongolia is geographically situated between Russia and China, two major economic and political power houses who have the self-entitled capacity to exploit the resources of other nations. While other countries with natural resources have also suffered the “resource curse” and been exploited by powerful and resource-hungry nations, many of them are geographically located far away from any major power so that the terms of extraction might be negotiated more in the favour of the country being exploited. Because of Mongolia’s location, it is our duty as students of public policy, to ensure that the natural resources, all of which belong to the people of Mongolia, are extracted sustainably and without harming any Mongolians, with the added benefit of increased social service provision by the government through proper taxation of the mining industry.

   Wealthy countries seem to have this idea that their people have grown accustomed to living with certain luxuries (cars, electricity, clean water, precious gems) and therefore deserve to have continued access to these luxuries. For the governments of these countries, this means that they are willing to cut corners in less developed countries to maximize their extraction of these resources, even if cutting corners means allowing for less development and less access to basic necessities for the people of the countries they exploit. In the case of Mongolia, as we see in the Asia Pacific Memo video on EITI implementation there, many of its citizens have been negatively affected by the mining industry. Some nomadic pastoralists have been forced to relocate their herds and homes, other citizens have gone on without living without access to clean water, electricity, education or health services, and those Mongolians who have been given jobs in mines have been forced to sign wavers which remove any blame from the mining company in the event of their deaths on the job. This treatment is unfair, inhumane, and absolutely unacceptable for developed countries who claim to uphold the UN declaration of human rights.
   In this light, I am looking forward to researching the EITI implementation in Mongolia and other countries to see what kind of progress has taken place in recent years. I hope to be able to influence policy in Mongolia, along with my colleagues, to improve the transparency of these companies and the government mining department to ensure that all the money is accounted for. This money can, in turn, go towards funding social services for Mongolian citizens to provide necessities such as clean drinking water, housing, food, as well as important developmental infrastructure such as roads, hospitals, schools and the like. With these improvements to Mongolian society and state, this resource-rich country can make huge strides in their developmental goals and come more in line with other developed countries.

Geopolitical and Geo-Economic Landscapes Canada-Mongolia

 Bérangère Maïa Parizeau, MAAPPS // Jan 18, 2015

I find the unique dynamics between NGOs, different levels of government, other agencies and the public to be fascinating. EITI is a Norwegian NGO registered under the name of The Association for Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative” or “EITI Association” which operates globally.

(Important link: to see all EITI Reports, go to data.eiti.org)

EITI is a great example of this dynamic policy-making process. The EITI operates as an official mediator for transparency and national public accountability in extractive sectors globally. The United States applies EITI standards and has passed a measure for companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to disclose how much they pay for natural resources access under the Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank financial reform is considered a landmark legislation. The countries of Nigeria and Liberia have EITI standards legislations. In Norway, Ghana and Sierra Leone, mining and petroleum extraction laws include EITI criterions. Why is Canada not a EITI member?

EITI in Canada would contribute to Canadian public debate on natural resource accountability. Considering that Canada has been referred to as the country with the worst environmental performance in the western world, in my opinion this is worrisome. China is not a EITI member. The United States is a member. I’d like to find out why Canada is not a EITI member.

For information on Canada’s embarrassing environmental performance please visit: http://oilsandsrealitycheck.org/facts/climate-5/

As a reference, the above website was brought to my attention by Dr Tzepora Berman, who received an honorary law PhD degree from UBC. Tzeporah is known for her work as the coordinator of one of the largest civil disobedience in Canada’s history, the logging blockades in Clayoquot Sound during which she was arrested and charged with 857 counts of criminal aiding and abetting. Tzeporah was one of the creators and lead negotiators of the Great Bear Rainforest campaign as well as the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. Her work has contributed to the protection of over 40 million hectares of old growth forests.

Chasing Mongolia

Stephanie Zimmerling, MASc Mining Engineering // Jan 15, 2015

I am incredibly excited to be working on the EITI project in Mongolia and it feels like my involvement with this subject has been a long time coming. I completed my undergraduate degree in 2010 and at the time contemplated pursuing my Masters in Mining Engineering focusing on social, socio-economic and environmental impacts. At the time, it seemed everyone I spoke with pointed to Mongolia and the development of the Oyu Tolgoi mine and what it meant for he nomadic culture. I began familiarizing myself with the subject and became fascinated with the culture. I wanted to understand the implications of mining activity on the nomadic culture and the transition of individuals to urban life.
Well… I did not end up pursing my Masters at that time and instead spent the better half of 2 years traveling. I have dabbled in other areas as an engineer, but now find myself right back where I started pursuing a Masters in Mining Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Coincidentally, I even wrote of my knowledge of the implications of mining activity in Mongolia in my Statement of Intent. I wrote of my desire to pursue studies in this area and how “the development of Rio Tinto’s Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia’s Gobi desert is currently changing the landscape of the nomadic culture present in the same area. As this is a new area affected by the development of the mine, I am interested in exploring the extent of the impacts occurring in this region. The intention would be to address issues relating to water management, environmental sustainability and the social issues arising as herders try to transition in a more urban lifestyle. […] I hope to develop a framework and recommendations for addressing Mongolia’s issues.”
 
My thesis has since morphed into something different, which for the record I am quite happy with, but my desire to contribute to the evolving landscape in Mongolia is ever-present. I could not be MORE excited to be involved with this project. As Debbie highlights below, I have the same flurry of questions and cannot wait to begin answering them. 

On the Importance of Self-Reflection in an Experiential Learning Project

Julian Dierkes // Jan 14, 2015

In the current iteration of the Asia Pacific Policy Project, we’re asking participants to regularly reflect on their experience on this blog. They will be sharing information and concrete lessons that they’ve learned, but we will also be encouraging them to reflect on the experience of an experiential learning project of this kind.

Since the Project is more of a structure in which learning occurs than a course in which the instructors (Dirk van Zyl, UBC Mining Engineering and myself) teach, such reflections are especially important for student to understand and realize the learning that they are doing. We know from many conversations with participants in previous Projects that the experience of an applied, problem-driven, teamwork-based project of this kind has been very valuable and that they have learned a lot about themselves, the nature of teamwork, the open-endedness and indeterminacy of policy-making , and about the subject matter that projects have covered. By reflecting more explicitly about such lessons, we are hoping that students will be focused even more on their learning and view their participation in the Project as an opportunity for the acquisition of policy-analysis, but also project management skills that will be useful to them in professional careers.

We are expecting all participants to post to this blog at least six times over the course of the Spring 2015 term (Jan-April). Obviously, more frequent posts will also be welcome. These posts are written for three different audiences: students themselves (reflection for learning), other participants (information), and the interested public (reflections and information). They will not be edited, but we will try to build up a categorization structure that will allow readers to navigate within posts. Posts will be identified by their author.

Obviously, posts will be of varying length, from brief two-paragraph descriptions of a reflective moment of discovery to a much more extended and more substantive discussion of a specific aspect of the localization of the EITI in Mongolia or elsewhere.

Some students are likely to also include their posts in other social media activities that will allow them to incorporate participation in the project into the construction of a portfolio with an eye toward their future careers.

The Continuation of an Asia Pacific Policy Project

Julian Dierkes // Jan 13, 2015

The Spring 2015 project will be the first time that we’ll be continuing an Asia Pacific Policy Project from a previous (academic) year and I’m very curious to see whether that will make a difference to how the project unfolds.

In Spring 2014 the project initially familiarized itself with EITI reconciliation reports to then delve deeper into how these reports could be communicated in a different/additional way to receive more attention in civil society and in Mongolia overall. One of the great successes of this project were the three presentations students gave in Ulaanbaatar in early June to the Ministry of Mining, to NGOs (facilitated and hosted by the EITI Secretariat) and to the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. These presentations showcased the project to Mongolian audiences and will allow us to build on a familiarity with our Project in the current iteration.

While we’re still waiting on a decision about some funding for the Project that will allow participants to travel to Mongolia and thus engage stakeholders even more directly, the fact that some connections around the topic of the EITI in Mongolia have been established already will likely make a big difference this Spring. It also raised the expectations, internally as well as externally.

As we’re focusing on structures and initiatives to create local engagement with the EITI as well as support for reporting at the local level, we are taking the Project in a somewhat different direction. Local-level reporting is new to EITI reporting in Mongolia and elsewhere, so we may find that we’ll have fewer international examples of activities to draw on than we did last year in a focus on communications. But, that means that there is significant room for students’ creativity in imagining or recommending solutions and initiatives.