A higher standard of performance has been issued by the Extractive Industries Initiative, which held its annual meeting in Sydney, Australia, May 24-26.
Member countries will now need to release information about production volumes and mining licenses on a project-by-project basis.
EITI countries will have to maintain a public register that lists the company name, location and duration of each license, including an explanation of how licenses were awarded or transferred and details on applicants and criteria used in any license auctions.
EITI will now include total production volumes and the value of production by commodity, including by state and region when relevant, as well as total export volumes and the value of exports by commodity.
More information will be requested from state-owned companies.
“The new Standard has opened the door for EITI to become much more relevant to meaningful policy reforms to improve resource governance,” said Erica Westenberg, EITI Policy Officer at Revenue Watch. “The challenge now is for the 39 countries to implement the Standard in a timely and thorough way.”
Some nongovernmental organizations said the standards tightened should be further as some of the new rules merely “encourage” countries to increase disclosure.
See a news article on the new standard and an EITI blog post about the proposed changes.
Filed under: What's New