EITI has become an exciting experience for many countries; public received lots of information, experts started digging in figures deeper and revenue transparency has been much improved. So far around 140 EITI reports were released by almost 40 countries informing not only local, but also international community of receipts of extractive revenues since 2013. Starting from 2013 implementing countries started reporting by New Standard, thus releasing even more and detailed information.
But of course the most important contribution of EITI was built dialogue between government, CSO and extractive companies. EITI legalized free and equal participation of all 3 stakeholders and showed just reporting is not enough.
On June 17-19 Eurasia EI Knowledge Hub organized a 3 day training for 23 MSG members of Tajikistan, where these newly elected members were delivered comprehensive sessions on EITI, implementing “The Standard”, reporting, experience of other countries, strengths and weaknesses of EITI implementation in Eurasian countries, as well as validation process. The training was organized by Soros Tajikistan with support from the Ministry of Finance of Tajikistan.
Right after Tajikistan training on June 22-24 in Istanbul NRGI’s Eurasia Extractive Industries’ Knowledge Hub organized EITI Data Analyses workshop applying EITI’s 3-party MSG format.
If one of the workshop targets was to deliver NRGI’s EITI report analyses methodology, another was putting together people from MSGs and create multistakeholder atmosphere to discuss problems and find solutions.
The workshop was attended by 22 MSG members and activists from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Ukraine. The regional character of the workshop gave opportunity to participants to hear problems and approach of others as well.
“I have been involved in EITI process in my country from the very beginning and main aim of my participation here is to learn how to work with our EITI report and contribute to quality of reporting” – said Tojinisso Azizova, CSO MSG member from Tajikistan when telling about her expectations.
“I am a person who fills EITI reports on behalf of my company and it is good to know where all that information goes and how it looks finally” – said Sara Suleymanova, chief accountant of Binagadi Oil, an extractive company based in Azerbaijan.
Among other expectations participants told about experience exchange, promotion of EITI reports at sub-national level and improving tax collections.
Participants also shared with their views on main gaps in their EITI reporting. “Kazakhstan is not fulfilling any of encouraged EITI requirements. However information on beneficial ownership and part of PSAs on ecological and social payments are not confidential by law in our country. Also there’s lots of data, but very little analyses of it” – said Svetlana Ushakova, CSO representative from Kazakhstan.
Main analyze subject during the workshop was 2013 EITI report of Kazakhstan, due to fact it was the only published and available in Russian language EITI report in Eurasia.
The analyses methodology applied during the workshop was worked out by NRGI experts. It is a 3 step process starting with collection of information, its evaluation based on provisions Natural Resource Charter and other best practices and working out policy recommendations. Sessions were delivered by Eurasia Hub and NRGI Eurasia staff and covered topics on EITI Conception and Standard, EITI report analyses methodology, License Allocation, Production, Government Receipts from Extractives, State Owned Enterprises and Sub-national transfers. Each session had group work component when country MSG teams came together to analyze particular information and work out recommendations.
The session on “Analyses methodology” started with practical question on why analysis was important to participants. “The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan publishes annual information on oil production in Azerbaijan, on the other side BP also does reporting. But there’s always discrepancy between these 2 information sources. I will now look at EITI reports only for concrete and correct information” – said Ilham Shaban, CSO expert from Azerbaijan.
“EITI analyses will help us in forming policy within government for sustainable development” – said Roman Nitsovych from Ukraine.
The group works showed not only CSO members were active, but government officials and company representatives were also very engaged and made presentations on behalf of their team.
“This workshop is very important for us, Kazakhstan delegation, to find out gaps and prevent them during next reporting” – said Elvira Jantureeva, representative of Ministry of Investments and Development of Kazakhstan.
The last session was on action planning, where participants had discussion about EITI reporting problems in their own countries, proposed recommendations and worked out short and long term action planning to achieve them. There were very important and interesting proposals on organizing parliamentary discussions/listening of EITI reports, increasing motivation of extractive companies to report on EITI, establishing institutional grounds for EITI, establishing e-versions of EITI reports, inclusion of encouraged EITI requirements to reporting, improving the quality of contextual information, improving enabling environment for CSO to freely participate in EITI process and capacity building for participants of EITI process.
The workshop was the second probation for NRGI’s EITI data analyses methodology and was quite well accepted and understood by participants.
Coming months will be important for all countries participating in 22-24 June workshop; Azerbaijan’s 2013 report in expected in July and will task local experts and Coalition with new investigations. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine also have tight deadlines to publish their first ETI Standard reports very soon. Thus timely delivered skills and capacity will enable all MSG parties to check the quality of their EITI reports and also prevent gaps in future reporting. New EITI reports and their analyses will also open new discussions and keep MSGs active.
Fidan Bagirova, Natural Resource Governance Institute