At the opening of the 8th Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Global Conference in Paris, outgoing Chair Fredrik Reinfeldt formally launched the 2019 EITI Standard. He said this is one of the most significant achievements of the outgoing EITI Board and it has involved a huge consultative exercise drawing on practice in the implementing countries.
“As such it is a reaffirmation of the commitment of the 52 countries. It focuses more on systematic disclosure of extractives data as a default rather than EITI reports. It also contains new requirements on contract transparency, the environment and gender,” he stated.
The 2019 EITI Standard represents a further evolution in transparency. The focus is on making disclosure and open data a routine part of government and corporate reporting, providing information to stakeholders in a timeframe and format that can support its widespread use in analysis and decision making, Reinfeldt said.
The new requirements on contract transparency include; requiring contracts to be made public with deadline for implementation, requiring contracts signed after a deadline to be made public and moving towards an expectation that contracts should be made public.
EITI said government and industry leaders also announced their commitments at the conference which saw, among others, the governments of Guyana and Tanzania committing to publish oil, gas and mining contracts. Guyana became an EITI candidate country in 2017 and submitted its first report in April this year.
With the closing of the EITI 2019 Global Conference, the baton has now passed to the new EITI Chair, Helen Clark, and the 2019 EITI Board.
