Revenue Watch Highlights of 2009

Over the course of 2009, Revenue Watch and our partners saw great strides toward more transparent and accountable management of natural resources. Through our innovative training approaches, cutting edge research, focused advocacy, grant-making and expert technical assistance, we supported systemic change to turn resource wealth into lasting benefits for citizens.

Selected highlights from our work in 2009 include:

Training Hubs: We piloted a regional training hub in Africa to offer courses to civil society, parliamentarians and media. The hub is a joint undertaking of RWI and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), an independent advanced education institution in Accra. The first course was offered in summer 2009 to 30 participants from Ghana, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Nigeria.

Technical Assistance: Through consultations with governments, RWI and its network of experts have helped Mongolia and Sierra Leone secure better terms in large mining contracts, advised Iraq on its oil concession laws, and helped the Peruvian legislature assess the formula for sharing mining revenues with regions and communities.

Sub-National Governance: RWI has pioneered programs with the local governments and communities in resource-rich areas of Ghana, Indonesia, the Niger Delta and Peru, to bring about more effective and accountable management of their share of mineral revenues. Transparency and technical skills to manage extractive revenues are especially lacking at the sub-national level, yet these are the government units most directly responsible for delivering public services that extractive income can finance. RWI’s sub-national work is funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is gaining increasing interest and attention from multilateral and bilateral donors.

Contracts and Policies: We continue to develop our role as a center of expertise on legal and economic policy issues related to natural resource management. More than 200 people attended our September conference in Washington, D.C. on transparency in the extractives contracting process, co-sponsored by Oxfam. During this event, RWI released its report Contracts Confidential, created in collaboration with Columbia University Law School. Conference attendees came from IFIs, producing countries, NGOs working on issues ranging from indigenous rights, environmental conservation, human rights, and corporate social responsibility, and also included major foundations, academics, extractive company representatives and representatives from the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government and several UN agencies.

Natural Resource Charter: RWI has helped to organize a group of distinguished economists, lawyers, political scientists and tax experts, led by author, professor and RWI advisor Paul Collier, to develop a Natural Resource Charter. This practical policy guide addresses the whole value chain from the decision to extract to spending or waiving the money, in order to help countries strengthen extractive industries governance and realize the full economic benefits of windfalls from oil, gas and mining. Revenue Watch expects the Charter to significantly influence the widening international debate on resource management.

LEARN MORE

• Revenue Watch Pilots "Regional Hub" for Capacity Building
• RWI Partners Meet to Confront Sub-National Resource Revenue Challenges
• Oil-Rich Nigerian Province Convenes Companies, Citizen Leaders and Government Officials
• Transparency Activists Gather and Offer Feedback on New Natural Resource Charter
• RWI Lobbies for International Accounting Standards Reform: A "Rare Alignment" of Finance and Humanitarian Interests
• Bipartisan Group in Senate Introduces Legislation to Improve Company Reporting, Energy Security
• Revenue Watch Welcomes End to Scandal-Plagued U.S. Program for Oil and Gas Payments
• Conference on Contracts Presents RWI Report and New Transparency Goals
• Revenue Watch Praises Liberia for Milestone Approval on Transparency Practices
• EITI Guide for Legislators: How to Support and Strengthen Resource Transparency