TRANSPARENCY: Publishing What We Learned

Summary: This report discusses the origins and evolution of PWYP from 2002 to 2007. It also assesses the effectiveness of PWYP’s advocacy and policy initiatives and examines how the Coalition has operated internationally. In this sense, the report is not only a narrative of PWYP’s history and accomplishments, but a practical tool to shine a light on the strengths and challenges which face a global civil society coalition.

Revenues from the oil, gas and mining industries are an important source of income for governments of over 50 countries around the world. Paradoxically, most of these countries are rich but the majority of their citizens are living in poverty.

The lack of transparency in the payment and receipt of natural resource revenues has fostered corruption and mismanagement by officials in these countries. Yet if citizens know how much their government gets paid for the extraction of the country’s natural resources, it becomes much easier to monitor how the revenue is spent. These proceeds can then serve as a basis for poverty reduction, economic growth and development.

The PWYP coalition was founded in 2002 by a small, ad hoc group of London-based NGO representatives to tackle the ‘resource curse’ by campaigning for greater transparency and accountability in the management of revenues from the oil, gas and mining industries.

Since then, the PWYP coalition has grown to become a global network comprised of community organisations, international NGOs and faith-based groups in more than 70 countries.

The Coalition’s endeavours have enabled citizens of resource-rich developing countries to gain greater access to the information they need to hold their government accountable. PWYP has played a catalytic role in putting resource revenue transparency on the agenda of governments, companies, investors, donor agencies and international organisations.

Initiatives have been launched in response to PWYP to increase revenue transparency—through both mandatory and voluntary means.

About the report

Publishing What We Learned discusses the origins and evolution of PWYP from 2002 to 2007. It also assesses the effectiveness of PWYP’s advocacy and policy initiatives and examines how the Coalition has operated internationally. In this sense, the report is not only a narrative of PWYP’s history and accomplishments, but a practical tool to shine a light on the strengths and challenges which face a global civil society coalition.

Download the full report in pdf version.

Or read the Executive Summary in:

Owner: Mabel van Oranje and Henry Parhampdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/Publishing_What_We_Learned.pdf

Web: 
http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/

Countries

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