Contract and Revenue Transparency Reform Among Export Credit Agencies (ECAs)

RWI has supported Pacific Environment and its activities in the PWYP-US coalition promoting contract and revenue transparency reform among export-credit agencies. The organization led the successful effort to persuade the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation to support the principles of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Though the corporation will encourage, and not require, clients to disclose revenues they pay to host governments, this commitment will help EI-affected countries gain more of the downstream development benefits that upstream EITI reporting can create. Pacific Environment and other members of the coalition also worked with several Congressional offices on an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to add transparency requirements into the reauthorization bill of the Export-Import Bank in 2006.

Pacific Environment has also led a call for revenue and contract transparency to be incorporated into the common set of demands of ECA-Watch, the international ad-hoc network of NGOs seeking to reform export credit agencies. Finally, along with Bank Information Center, Pacific Environment helped push the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to adopt revenue and contract transparency reforms. And in July 2006, EBRD adopted a revised Energy Policy which includes a requirement for its extractive sector project sponsors to disclose revenue payments.