Working with attorneys from the International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) and other experts, Revenue Watch has been assisting the government of Sierra Leone in its ongoing review and negotiation of mining conventions since early 2008. This effort has taken place in the context of a broader policy and legislative overhaul, and RWI has focused on helping the government manage these parallel processes so that policy decisions developed during contract negotiations are consistent with the broader legal framework.
RWI has been an advocate of greater civil society participation in both the legal reform and contract review processes. Two civil society representatives, including a representative of RWI's local civil society partner in Sierra Leone, the National Advocacy Coalition on the Extractives (NACE), were given formal roles on the task force charged with contract review. RWI has developed and run economic models used by the government's negotiation team and provided comparative analyses and advice on the formulation of extractive industry tax policy.