The joint event of Natural Resource Governance Institute and Publish What You Pay Coalition brought together CSO activists from 8 countries of Eurasia (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Georgia and Albania) and around 30 people.
First two days of the regional meeting were devoted to capacity building workshop. NRGI’s Alexandra Gillies delivered most of the sessions, while NRGI regional coordinator Galib Efendiyev, PWYP regional coordinator Oliana Valigura contributed with several other sessions and facilitation.
First presentation was on “Changing environment: Energy sector politics in Eurasia. Alexandra Gillies told about regional and country conflicts affecting the whole world. She continued with importance of international T&A initiatives, but told some of them “die” after 2 years of existence. “The positive thing about EITI is that this never happened to this initiative. Moreover EITI started expanding and included new topics such as beneficial ownership, which is very important for many countries.
Another indirect affect is EU issued decree forcing all European countries to mandatory reporting. However, sometimes the opposite happens: we witnessed this with Dodd-Frank act. Although the government of US adopted this Act, extractive companies invested millions to fight it and were successful” – said Mr. Gilles.
“There are also huge countries like China, Brazil, India or Russia that are outside EITI and do not report at all” – she added.
NRGI regional coordinator for Eurasia Galib Efendiyev told about particular geopolitical changes in the world and region. He mentioned cases of Ukraine and Azerbaijan. “We are witnessing ineffiency I would like to talk about changing role of main stakeholders. If EITI, OGP initiated transparency, reporting and dialogues between CSO and government, right now we are witnessing inefficiency of T&A instruments and the fact when balanced diplomacy and negotiations take place. We now can say EITI cannot guarantee full transparency and accountability” – said Galib. “I would also mention on interest towards expenditure part of public finance. Yes, we know how much is earned but how much and how is spent should also be discussed and taken into account. And this should be on our agenda as well” – he added.
Oleksiy Orlovskiy from Renaissance Foundation reported on situation in Ukraine: “I think what’s happening in Ukraine now, is the problem of the whole world”. He told about Russian aggression and changes that happened after occupation of Crimea.
Azerbaijan EITI NGO Coalition coordinator Gubad Ibadoglu said things happening in Ukraine affected situation of CSOs in Azerbaijan as well. He made presentation telling about stages of attacks to independent CSO organizations, about arrested NGO leaders and those who were forced to leave the country.
Participants from Albania, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan shared with their concerns and said similar situation can happen in any country of the region. They also mentioned on necessity of good networking to provide assistance and support.
Alexandra Gillies continued with the presentation on “Implementing standard” and reminded about new EITI requirements. Participants discussed discouraged EITI clauses, like contracts and beneficiary ownership.
NRGI Mongolia country coordinator Dorjdari Namkhaijantsan made presentation on sub-national EITI n Mongolia. He told about successes and challenges, on mechanisms and local MSG groups. Dorjdari mentioned about necessity of capacity building and informed on number of workshops organized with financial support of MDTF, PWYP and NRGI.
PWYP’s Oliana Valigura made presentation on Kyrgyzstan and sub-national EITI that was followed by discussions and active participation of representatives from this country.
The second day of the training was quite active and lots of discussions took place.
Dvyeke Rogan and International EITI Secretariat joined the workshop, after her visit to Azerbaijan on evaluation of worsened enabling environment for CSOs in this country.
Alexandra Gilles made presentation on state owned enterprises which was followed by active group discussions.
The final session facilitated by Galib Efendiyev on “Challenges to civil society participation, and how the EITI should respond” was accompanied with very live and active discussion. “We all admit reporting is very essential in EITI, however the spirit of EITI is 3-party participation and dialogues between government, companies and civil society” – said Galib Efendiyev.
Oleksiy Orlovskiy said CSO were driving-force for EITI process in Ukraine and this proves the importance of CSO in this process.
Oliana Valigura said we cannot talk about capacity building events, when there’s absolutely impossible enabling environment for CSO in countries like Azerbaijan. “We need more active advocacy from the whole region and we need to think what could be done on local, regional and international level” – she mentioned.
The workshop days were followed by PWYP regional meeting on 24th and strategic discussion of Eurasia Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub on 25th.
Download materials: 10th-PWYP-Eurasia-meeting-presentations.zip
PWYP