Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Phase II

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was launched in 2002 with the aim to establish a global voluntary standard for a more transparent recording of financial revenues stemming from the management of natural resource. Increasing transparency in extractive industries (EI) brings about better governance and economic, environmental and social sustainability and thus contains the resource curse. 32 countries were implementing EITI at the end of 2014, resulting in reports covering over 3 trillion USD in revenues.

The goal of the EITI is to tackle the "resource curse" and to sustainably reduce poverty in resource-rich countries.

More transparency of revenues from extractive of non-renewable natural resources.

Increased accountability of expenditure.

Lower levels of corruption.

Strengthened investment climate.

Expected results:  

A set of rules defining the criteria for being accepted as a candidate country, for being granted the "EITI Compliant" certification and for retaining or regaining the candidate or compliant status. The EITI rules are formalized in the EITI Standard which was agreed and published in 2013.

A national and global multi-stakeholder framework involving over 50 governments (from both implementing and supporting countries), civil society (500 NGOs, most of which represented through the 'Publish What You Pay' coalition) and 80 international companies active in oil, gas and/or mining (including the major companies).

A reporting and validation process to assess compliance. The validation process is carried out in the respective EITI implementing countries and its quality assured at regular intervals through the EITI Secretariat.

A board meeting of the EITI will be organised in Switzerland in Ocotber 2015.

Results from previous phases:  

Switzerland supports the EITI since 2009 in conjunction with two World Bank administered multi-donor trust funds (EITI MDTF and EI-TAF). Over the first phase of support, the EITI has experience a strong growth in the number of countries that implement the EITI and the volume of revenues reported. Today, the EITI is established as the global standard for revenue transparency in the extractive sector.

Phase 2 30.11.2014 - 31.12.2016   (Active)