Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative

The international aid transparency movement has been inspired by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which pioneerd the use of international reporting standards to fight corruption. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative was announced by Tony Blair at the 2002 Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, and held it first plenary conference in 2003. The purpose of EITI is to increase transparency on payments by companies to governments and on natural ressource government revenues through a set of reporting guidelines.

Since the first pilot projects of EITI in Ghana, Nigeria and Azerbaijan, EITI has been implemented in 30 resource rich countries around the globe. Implementation has been fostered by pressure from the World Bank in Bank financed projects.

EITI is supported by an international advisory group (IAG). Its headquarters are in Oslo, Norway. For more information on EITI consult its factsheet. For us at OpenAid the use of transparent information should serve the purposes of better project management, democratic ownership and corruption control through social media. EITI consult Sverre Andreas Lunde-Danbolt confirms our conviction of the relevance of social media and participation for EITI in his article on the EITI website..