For three days in January, 25 representatives of Iraqi civil society groups gathered in Beirut, Lebanon, for the first in a series of three Revenue Watch capacity building workshops, organized with the help of the Iraq Foundation in Baghdad. Participants concluded the training with the decision to form a coalition of nongovernmental organizations working for transparency in natural resource management.
The training, intended to strengthen civil society's impact on oil governance in Iraq, drew participants from a wide range of backgrounds, from both Baghdad and Iraq's resource-rich regions. Some civil society groups had worked on anti-corruption or transparency campaigns in the past, or with oil companies. Some participated in Iraq's multi-stakeholder group, known as the "stakeholders' council," as the voice of civil society.
"Iraqi civil society, as a whole, is very young and inexperienced. Most NGOs have few or no resources to sustain their organizations and need considerable training to operate programs," said Patricia Karam, RWI Middle East and North Africa regional coordinator. Many of these NGOs, she added, are plagued with ethnic and ideological divisions, political infighting, and a lack of independence. Over 2000 Iraqi nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) emerged in 2003 after the fall of the Baath regime, and few have the experience and capacity of citizens' groups tackling these issues in other resource rich nations, making it important for trainers to identify groups with the potential to learn and grow.
"In Iraq, being part of civil society became a business fueled by donor money," said Karam. "Part of the challenge for transparency advocates is selecting real NGOs with a track record of project management and interest, background expertise and organizational capacity."
These concerns arose at the meeting, during heated discussions about the composition of the Iraq Stakeholders' Council. Iraq announced in 2010 that it would implement the EITI, but wider civil society has been generally disengaged as many groups have accused the government of hijacking the initiative and controlling civil society input. RWI's efforts focus on reengaging civil society in the process and helping to rebuild trust between the government and oversight partners.
In earlier work in Iraq, RWI found that public debate around the oil sector remained very limited, while corruption, and the perception of corruption, was pervasive.
Iraqi civil society also contends with all the political tensions that afflict the larger society, the hazards of learning to advocate for transparency in a country not yet truly at peace and even infiltration of their groups by militia members.
Despite these challenges, the training concluded with the formation of a new civil society extractive industry coalition that will shape much of Iraqi civil society's future transparency advocacy. During the January meeting, the coalition devised and agreed upon a timetable to create internal coalition bylaws and a protocol for working with the stakeholders' council, to be finalized at a RWI-sponsored meeting in April.
"Civil society leaders are learning more and more about these key industries," Karam said. "The new civil society coalition has the potential to greatly expand EITI advocacy and make the importance of the initiative clear to the general public."
Training sessions were led by transparency experts including Galib Efendiev, RWI Central Asia and the Caucasus regional coordinator; Yahia Said, World Bank Iraq senior advisor; Radhika Sarin, Publish What You Pay international coordinator; and industry representatives from Shell International.
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