NRGI launches site with project level payments data

The Natural Resource Governance Institute [resourcegovernance.org] (NRGI) has launches a new website resourceprojects.org, providing project level payment data with the aim to increase transparency in the natural resources sector across the world.

ResourceProjects.org is an open-source repository of data on oil, gas and mining projects across the world. It provides a platform to collect, display, download and search extractive project information using open data. It aims to harvest data on project-by-project payments to governments—based on recent mandatory disclosure legislation in the EU, U.S. and Canada as well as EITI reports—and link it to associated information about the project from a variety of sources. The platform will make it easier for journalists, CSOs, researchers and government officials to search, access and download relevant data.

Have a look here [resourceprojects.org] and further explanation here.

EITI progress and countries' back-pedalling.

The Economist highlights this week the progress of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), to bring transparency and reduce corruption in the oil and other minerals industries across the world.

The article highlights some cases of "back-pedalling" in Africa, where countries find ways around the requirement of transparent accounting to siphon off money to corrupt individuals. Still, one could argue that the EITI exactly helps to highlight such behaviour.

Similarly, Azerbaijan which lost [eiti.org] its EITI compliant country status earlier this year, and was downgraded to candidate. The major concern here is the involvement of civil society. NRGI put out a press-release [resourcegovernance.org] condemning the beating of one of its advisory council board members, Ilgar Mammadov, by "high-ranking staff" of a prison where he's held since 2013.
Mr. Mammadov was arrested in in 2013 on charges of inciting mass violence in relation with an anti-government protest, and subsequently sentenced to 7 years in jail. The Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights have ruled that the judgement was illegal and ordered his release [amnesty.org]. The government chose to ignore that ruling. The Council of Europe withdrew [azerireport.com, see also CoE website] from a working group it had initiated with Azerbaijan due to its suppression on human rights defenders in past years. Following the beating Mammadov's life is reportedly [azerireport.com] in danger now.

We posted earlier on Azerbaijan, see here.

UK implements transparency guidelines for natural resource industry

The UK is moving forward in implementing transparency rules that aim to reveal the money flows between buyers, sellers and producers of natural resources. Last month it attained candidate status of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative. Since first January it's the first EU member state to implement the EU directive for extractive industries, which requires similar disclosure.

See here [ft.com] for the FT article, and here [resourcegovernance.org] from the Natural Resource Governance Institute.