Comments
Hi, Martin
I agree that there is an issue to be resolved, in fact for me there are two issues - what, in the context of the EITI, actually is civil society?; and how should it be organised in its EITI engagement?
The first question is surprisingly difficult to find a consensual answer to. In my opinion this is because the "normal" (i.e. outwit EITI) definition of civil society does not countenance a third grouping of private sector extractive industries (or any other sector of any other sort, for that matter), but simply put is "everything outwith the State". That is simple to say and simple to explain, albeit the actual delimitation between State and Civil Society is often pretty fuzzy. By including this third constituency the delimitations become even more fuzzy, e.g. is someone working in a nationalised industry part of the State or part of Civil Society? And if that industry is then privatised, do they suddenly become representative in some way of the Private Sector? Or do we only say that if their industry is involved in subsoil extraction? etc. etc.
Then there is the question of whether PWYP should have an institutionalised role in representing whatever we end up agreeing (ever?) civil society is, or whether there should be a level playing field in this regard, with no special role for any Coalition, even a capacity-building and overarching one such as PWYP.
So, in short I think your contribution is very useful and hopefully will set off a constructive debate here - which is the point of GOXI, of course.
Please could I ask fellow GOXIans to note that the full list of questions as part of this consultation is available at the URL below, and that this URL also gives an introductory/ contextual statement by the EITI Chair.
https://eiti.org/document/consultation-on-eiti-constituency-governance
This is along overdue exercise. I am sure EITI have learnt so much about what is required in different parts of the world since Tony Blair first launched this great endeavour in the UK. I think the problem is EITI can see the need to adapt their procedures and rules but NGOs have not caught up since PWYP volunteered to help and advise on Civil Society governance and representation. We saw this in Lima when they organised protests about EITI governance- even though they have other channels to discuss problems. To the world at large and the other constituencies it looks like very strange behavior indeed
all the more so when PWYP (and GW) seem to demand special consideration for themselves when it comes to the very transparency in governance that they demand of others like the EITI?