|
|
|
|
Email not displaying properly?
|
|
|
International Women’s Day 2013: let’s talk about extractives
 |
|
| |
International Women’s Day in 2013 will be particularly interesting for PWYP as it will mark our first event with UN Women: a workshop designed to increase the understanding and knowledge of the gender aspects in the Extractive Industry.
We often speak of how the exploitation of natural resources has resulted in lost opportunities for development or the abuse of environmental and human rights. However, we have been less vocal about extraction in terms of its impact on women and their rights. Yet these impacts are considerable and merit examination.
Women are often the first to be affected by the adverse effects of natural resource exploitation. For instance, in many resource-rich countries women are subsistence farmers and lose their livelihoods when land is used for extractive projects or spoiled by pollution. Influxes of male works on projects have resulted in increased violence against women and girls as well as contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Furthermore, women need to be included in the conversation about extractives in order for policies or programs to have a real impact. Yet there are too few women working on extractives transparency as national coordinators or sitting on EITI multi-stakeholder groups.
We will be working in collaboration with UN Women in the future to help rectify this. The first milestone in this collaboration will be the workshop on the International Day of Women. However, we will also be conducting a gender analysis of the extractive industries using a PWYP Chain for Change approach and carrying out joint action-research, among other plans.
At our Ten Year Anniversary Conference in Amsterdam, PWYP women discussed setting up a network to share their experiences. Last week, the first issue of the newsletter Voix des Femmes (Women’s voices), was published – it includes several articles on issues pertaining to natural resources from the point of view of women. (At this stage it is only available in French, but we will have it translated).
We are very excited about working on this issue and we’ll be keeping you up to date on developments in our newsletter and on our website.
|
|
|
Practice What You Preach: financial transparency
If we demand transparency from others, we need to exercise financial transparency of our own. Therefore we are publishing details of our income and expenditure for 2011 on our website. We’ve laid out how much money comes from whom and what areas of work we have spent it on. We’ll put up data covering 2012 later on next year.
If you have any comments about this page, feel free to get in touch.
|
|
|
The new challenge for EITI
How can the EITI become a tool for improving the living conditions of poor populations?
Our national coordinator in the DRC, Jean-Claude Katende, explores this question. Below is an excerpt of his paper, for the full document please visit our site.
…“On the subject of EITI Reports being based on data two or three years out of date, the 2007 EITI Report of the Democratic Republic of Congo was distributed in 2010. On that occasion, a woman told us: “Your EITI is no use. It’s like the doctor who arrives after the patient has died. What good is it?” Even if EITI undertakes to work on concerning itself with very recent data, that woman’s question expresses the deep need of all poor populations to see EITI having some effect on their daily lives.
During the distribution of the EITI Report covering the financial years 2008 and 2009 in Kinshasa, a civil society actor addressed this comment to me: “Mr Katende, give your figures a human face as well. I mean, try to discover what impact the figures of your report have had on the lives of the Congolese populations. Otherwise, the situation of the populations before EITI is no different from that after EITI.”
All of these comments and remarks helped me to understand that poor populations will only take ownership of EITI when it has an impact on their lives. They can only fight for EITI if they see the positive effect of the initiative on their lives. That was when I understood that the future of EITI is at stake here. Without direct impact on the lives of the poor, EITI has no future, at least in the long term.
Here, it is appropriate to recall the message sent by Ms Clare Short, Chair of the EITI Board, to members of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) meeting in Amsterdam to mark the network’s tenth anniversary.
She said: “I congratulate everyone that has been involved in Publish What You Pay. You have put the spotlight on one of the greatest development challenges. You have also contributed to change, through the EITI as well as your other efforts. But there is a long way to go before natural resource riches bring benefits and development to all, especially the poor.”
The road that remains to be travelled, both for EITI and for PWYP, is the one that sees poor populations benefiting from their natural resources.”…
Read the rest of the article
|
|
|
Learning how to reverse the resource curse
From 9th – 16th December, The Central European University’s School of Public Policy in Budapest, Hungary together with the Revenue Watch Institute and the Natural Resource Charter hosted the first half of a course aimed to help practitioners in their bid to ‘reverse the resource curse’. Participants came from governments, state oil companies as well as from civil society. It was a practical course: as well as an introduction to the context in terms of political economy, we learned the nuts and bolts of fiscal regimes, contract negotiations and examined how revenues are divided between company and state.
We’ll be posting blogs up about that week on our site in the New Year, but in the meantime, you can get an excellent overview of how the week went by reading the blogs on the Revenue Watch website:
|
|
|
PWYP in MENA – What can we learn from each other?
|
 |
|
On 5th and 6th December 2012, Publish What You Pay hosted a workshop for the MENA region, in Beirut.
Auspiciously perhaps, the workshop took place as Lebanon was in in the midst of setting up its energy sector and was launching bids for offshore exploration licenses. Indeed, for many countries in the region – whether because of new regimes, new discoveries or simply a new motivation for change – it seems an opportune time to campaign for transparency and accountability in the extractive sector. The natural resources in the region – and their potential to improve the lives of millions and in doing so create a better investment climate – are plenty, but it is only with genuine accountability that change can be delivered.
While civil society activism on this issue in the region is itself not new, PWYP’s involvement is relatively recent (although both Yemen and Iraq have had PWYP members for some time.) This workshop was the second time all members had met on a regional basis, the first being in September 2012 in Amsterdam. Since last year, with the addition of a MENA/Iraq coordinator to the PWYP Secretariat, regional collaboration between PWYP members has been growing.
Participants came from countries all across the MENA region – including EITI implementing countries such as Iraq and Yemen as well as Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia. H.E. the Ambassador of Great Britain, Thomas Fletcher, gave the opening speech and highlighted the importance of following a more transparent path when dealing with EI sectors around the globe.
The central aim of this workshop was to support participants in setting their strategic priorities and developing their national action plans. A subsequent MENA workshop in February 2013 will build on this work, providing capacity building in certain areas and discussing the implementation of the above plans. Participants also integrated their strategies with Publish What You Pay’s wider Vision 20/20.
We’d like to thank the British and Norwegian embassies for their support in the region.
|
|
|
Job Opps:
PWYP – Consultant to carry out scoping study in Latin America
PWYP is looking for an experienced consultant with a strong relevant background in development and/or (EI) transparency and accountability as well as experience of conducting feasibility/scoping studies. The person should preferably be based in the region and have a good regional overview of trends in EI transparency and accountability within civil society as well as among donors. Finally s/he needs to have excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and Spanish including an ability to write concise, readable and analytical reports.
For more on this opportunity, please visit our website
Consultants for scoping study in Asia
PWYP and Cordaid are looking for two experienced consultants (one for India and one for Asia-Pacific) with a strong relevant background in development and/or (EI) transparency and accountability as well as experience of conducting feasibility/scoping studies. The persons should preferably be based in the region and have a good regional overview of trends in EI transparency and accountability within civil society as well as among donors. Finally s/he needs to have excellent written and verbal communication skills in English including an ability to write concise, readable and analytical reports
For more on this opportunity, please visit our website
|
|
|
|
|
|
