While RWI has several existing projects in Ghana, our partnership with Publish What You Pay-Ghana aims to help build capacity for civil society in support of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).

These efforts focus specifically on educating Ghanaian civil society groups on EITI principles and their potential to foster accountable and responsible revenue management practices by governments and mining companies. The project also seeks to increase civil society interest and capacity to work on EITI, especially at the community level.

Ghana, the second leading gold producing country in Africa after South Africa, is classified by the World Bank as a highly indebted poor country with some of the world’s worst human development statistics.  Although the commodity boom has slowly begun to manifest itself in producing regions through swelling budgets and rising public expectations, financial, social and environmental challenges are many.

The 2006 EITI aggregator's report identified a plethora of issues that plague Ghana's internal mining revenue distribution process from top to bottom, including poor budgeting on the part of local authorities spending without consideration for the fragility, volatility, or finite nature of mining revenues and obligations to future generations.

The project's major phases include public education through radio and television; community mobilization in workshops and trainings on budget analysis, resource utilization and related issues; capacity building for better monitoring, evaluation and tracking; and coordination and networking.

For more information on the activities of PWYP-Ghana, please see www.publishwhatyoupay.org/en/category/countries/ghana.