Recent Articles

As Tanzania works toward validation as an EITI country, local members of civil society, the media and a parliamentary representative gathered in Dar es Salaam for a series of Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) training and strategy sessions organized by the Revenue Watch Institute, in collaboration with the Policy Forum of Tanzania and with logistical support from Norwegian Church Aid—Tanzania office. The first event was an informal training and coordination session held on January 20 for the civil society members of the Tanzania EITI Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG)
News Article ~ 26 January 2010
Dr. Keith Myers, the co-founder of Richmond Energy Partners, led a Revenue Watch Institute workshop on oil and gas governance for members of Ghana's parliament last October. The training was part of RWI's ongoing parliamentary project, created in partnership with the Parliamentary Centre. The event also benefited from budgetary support from GTZ. RWI asked Dr. Myers to share his reflections on the training and Ghana's oil future.
News Article ~ 7 January 2010
On November 6, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) hosted a training workshop in Kampala, Uganda to promote contract transparency in Uganda's oil sector. The training, sponsored by Revenue Watch with contributions from Publish What You Pay Uganda and the Open Society Initiative for East Africa, brought together a diverse set of actors, including civil society groups, members of parliament and journalists, to promote public disclosure of the country's oil contracts.
News Article ~ 18 December 2009
On October 20, Revenue Watch began a three-day technical workshop for Ghanaian legislators in Sogakope, Ghana, in partnership with German nonprofit GTZ and the Parliamentary Centre.
News Article ~ 27 October 2009
On September 23, as a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation to broaden disclosure of international extractive industry payments, more than 200 activists, policymakers, industry representatives and government officials gathered for a conference that may herald a new stage in the global movement for natural resource transparency and accountability. The event marked the release of Revenue Watch's report Contracts Confidential: Ending Secret Deals in the Extractive Industries, which challenges most of the common objections to openness in extractive industry contracts.
News Article ~ 23 October 2009

STOCKHOLM—Public disclosure and public engagement can transform development strategy into social change, a group of international communications and governance experts told leaders gathered today at the annual European Development Days conference.

Press Release ~ 22 October 2009
Next month in Washington, D.C., Revenue Watch will co-host a seminar with Partners for Democratic Change entitled: "Strategies for Building Political Support to Expand the Reach of EITI to New Countries" Panelists will discuss arguments for EITI adoption, successful experiences advocating EITI with participating governments, and the appropriate role of local civil society organizations in promoting the initiative.
Press Release ~ 19 October 2009
International Alert (IA), an independent peace building organization that works in communities affected by violent conflict, recently launched a report on Uganda's emerging petroleum industry, "Harnessing Oil for Peace and Development in Uganda: Understanding National, Local and Cross-border Conflict Risks Associated with Oil Discoveries in the Albertine Rift." The report is the second briefing paper in International Alert's "Investing in Peace" series, which targets policy-makers in government, development partners, civil society and the private sector to explore the "political economy" of conflicts in Uganda.
News Article ~ 28 September 2009
This June, Revenue Watch Institute worked with the Timor Leste Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative Secretariat and the East Timor NGO Forum (FONGTIL) to implement a series of training on EITI for civil society, the MSG and parliamentarians.  Facilitated by Revenue Watch Asia-Pacific Regional Coordinator Chandra Kirana, Radhika Sarin, Coordinator of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) International, and other civil society representatives, the workshops drew 56 participants to learn about the EITI and analyze the experience of other countries, such as Kazakhstan and Liberia, that have already undergone the process. 
News Article ~ 4 September 2009
The first National Meeting of the Publish What You Pay-Indonesia coalition was held in Jakarta this August. Although the coalition was established in November 2007, due to organizational difficulties there had not yet been a national meeting of the group to establish a formal governance structure—something which has become a necessity as the coalition has grown—and to discuss varied responses to notes from PWYP-Indonesia's 2007 workshop on coalition positioning and work structure.
News Article ~ 4 September 2009
This August, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) released a working draft of its new guidelines for extractive activities. Accounting standards regulate the information companies must publish in annual financial reports, including a company's property, payments, revenues, profits and losses.
News Article ~ 4 September 2009
Uganda's nascent oil sector has taken important steps during 2009. Early production was initially scheduled to begin in June, but was postponed after the discovery of additional reserves and the announcement of tentative plans for a new government refinery that could produce heavy fuel oil for electricity generation. (The government is currently seeking potential investors.) In the legislative realm, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development has been shaping a framework to implement the National Oil and Gas policy enacted in January, 2008. This framework is still under discussion in the cabinet.
News Article ~ 12 August 2009
In a policy briefing on resource revenue management in Ghana, Antoine Heuty of RWI and Andrés Mejía Acosta of the Institute of Development Studies explore how domestic political factors may influence development outcomes through the management of natural resource revenues. Though Ghana is among the world's top ten exporters of gold, nearly 80% of the population lives on less than two U.S. dollars per day.
News Article ~ 27 May 2009
On May 12, the EITI Secretariat hosted a roundtable discussion about opportunities to broaden EITI to also include sub-national regions. Though working with sub-national regions has been an EITI interest for several years, Ghana is currently the only implementing country to report sub-national revenues. Revenue Watch Senior Economist Antoine Heuty spoke about RWI's extensive work at the sub-national level in Nigeria's Bayelsa state and the meeting included perspectives from ongoing sub-national work in Peru, Colombia and Ghana.
News Article ~ 15 May 2009
From May 11-15, leaders from the global transparency movement met in the United States. All last week and in the following days, Revenue Watch posted updates and reflections from events convened by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the World Bank. EITI board member and Revenue Watch chairman Anthony Richter also blogged throughout the week's events, which culminated in the formal meeting of the EITI Board.
News Article ~ 11 May 2009
Half a dozen Revenue Watch delegates joined over 500 participants at the fourth EITI Global Conference from February 16 to 18, in Doha, Qatar. Representatives from over 80 countries gathered to celebrate the achievements of the initiative thus far, to share experiences of support and implementation, and discuss ways of moving forward. The Republic of Azerbaijan was accepted as EITI Compliant, becoming the first implementing country to pass the EITI Validation process that determines whether an implementing country has met EITI requirements.
News Article ~ 26 March 2009
With bright sunlight shining on the gathered crowd, the mayor said, "I spent 25,242 soles for paving a street in the Cristo Nos Valga district." Amid Sechura's anniversary celebration, Mayor Santos Valentin Querevalu Periche spent more than 45 minutes describing, in painstaking detail, each line of the local government's budget. Between the flag-raising ceremony and the boisterous parade, the entire town stopped to hear how their leaders were spending the income from their natural resources.
News Article ~ 26 March 2009
Leaders from the international oil industry and the regional government of Bayelsa State gathered with citizen groups today to pioneer a more transparent and collaborative oversight process for oil revenues in the strife-torn Niger Delta.
Press Release ~ 5 March 2009
On November 28, 2008, in Maputo, Mozambique, a group of civil society organizations launched a national "Publish What You Pay" coalition to monitor development and government policies in the extractives industries. The coalition was formed under the auspices of G20, the Civil Society Platform for the Monitoring of Development.
Press Release ~ 16 January 2009
With a growing public debate over extractive resources as the backdrop, Tanzania showed its leadership in Africa last week with the announcement that it would join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. On November 19, Minister for Energy and Minerals William Ngeleja told reporters in Dar es Salaam that the move would help facilitate good governance and supervision of the mining sector and "help to ensure that mineral resources benefit the country. ..."
News Article ~ 25 November 2008
Peru's Institute of Development Studies joined a recent Revenue Watch conference in Lima organized to examine how government at the state and local levels takes on the opportunities and challenges of commodity windfalls. The recent boom in oil, gas and mineral prices has created a "paradox of plenty" for Peru's sub-national governments, which continue to lack capacity to improve social services, address poverty, or promote democracy and accountability.
News Article ~ 24 November 2008
On November 16, Revenue Watch Institute Senior Economist Antoine Heuty spoke to Senegal's West Africa Democracy Radio about Nigeria's subnational project, the Bayelsa Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (BEITI), which was launched on November 5. Heuty also spoke about the link between the lack of transparency and corruption, violence, and failed development; the importance of civil society engagement in transparency reform; and RWI's history of transparency advocacy in the extractive sector.
News Article ~ 18 November 2008
Oil exploration in Uganda is progressing rapidly, with numerous oil reserves being discovered, and more wells drilled in the Albertine region in the last two years. This rise in exploration raises expectations of an increase in the number of barrels of oil Uganda produces, from current estimated at 4,000 to 10,000 barrels per day.
News Article ~ 30 October 2008

Revenue Watch Africa regional coordinator Emmanuel Kuyole and deputy director Julie McCarthy joined more than 140 participants in Abuja, Nigeria this fall for Publish What You Pay's Africa regional meeting. RWI Program officer Angela Mugore led a validation training session, and RWI Fellow Susan Maples conducted a contracts disclosure training session.

News Article ~ 20 October 2008
In a June 30 interview, Revenue Watch Middle East North Africa Director Yahia Said explained the latest steps by Iraq to revitalize its oil sector through contracts with U.S. and foreign firms, and the continuing barriers to new hydrocarbon legislation. "The Iraqis haven't agreed yet on two major issues," Said told Judy Woodruff of "NewsHour." "One is the division of power and responsibilities between the central government and the regions and the province over the industry, who controls the industry, who signs contracts, who manages the fields.
News Article ~ 1 July 2008