The EITI Oslo Conference: Making transparency a global norm

 

Norway's Foreign Minister and President Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank opened the EITI Oslo Conference.

16.10.06

President Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank	Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre

Norway's Foreign Minister and President Paul Wolfowitz of the World Bank opened today the third plenary conference of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Oslo. 500 representatives from the world’s resource rich countries have come to Oslo to attend the conference. The goal of EITI is to ensure that the extraction of natural resources benefits the country as a whole and all its citizens.

Video from the conference Monday 16 October Video from the first session Tuesday 17 October Video from the second session Tuesday 17 October Video from the third session Tuesday 17 October

From resource curse to development

More than three and a half billion people live in countries rich in oil, gas and minerals. These natural resources provide great opportunities to improve the lives of people, but there are risks; lack of transparency undermines this opportunity and can lead to poverty, conflict and corruption. The goal of EITI is to ensure that the extraction of natural resources benefits the country as a whole and all its citizens. The EITI does this by setting common standards for publication and verification of company payments and for government revenues from oil, gas and mining. In other words, the objective is to make publicly available information on who pays what, where and to whom.

The purpose of the conference is to promote and consolidate the EITI by agreeing on the future management of the initiative, increasing the number of participating countries and building on the experience of countries that have implemented the EITI.

- In meeting these objectives, we will make the Oslo Conference a milestone towards making EITI a global norm, says the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, host for the conference.

The EITI Oslo Conference

Nigeria and Azerbaijan have been pilot countries since 2003. A number of countries will take the opportunity at the Oslo Conference to endorse the EITI, while others will report on their progress towards adherence. Identified challenges in implementation and governance of the process will be addressed in Oslo to consolidated and move EITI forward. As a starting point for this work, the International Advisory Group (IAG) to the EITI, chaired by Founder of Transparency International, Dr. Peter Eigen, launched their report last month. The report sets forth eight key recommendations on management of the initiative, validation, verification and expansion. The Conference will also identify concrete incentives for both governments and business to implement EITI in order to make the initiative self-sustaining.

Approximately 20 Ministers from resource rich countries, top executives from the global oil, gas and mining companies, heads of NGOs and international organizations like the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Finance corporation will participate at the conference. Non-governmental organisations, including Publish What You Pay and Global Witness, will be represented with more than 120 participants. A pre-conference for civil society has also been arranged in Oslo on 13-15 October, for more information see: www.publishwhatyoupay.org

For more information about the EITI Oslo conference, see: www.eitioslo.no

Links

• Foreign Minister Støre's opening speech at the EITI Oslo Conference
• The EITI Oslo conference
• The IAG-report
• EITI
• Publish what you pay
• Civil Society Perspectives and recommentations on the EITI
  (Report from Publish What You Pay)
• Transparency in the Norwegian Petroleum Sector (i pdf-format – 1,2 MB)