What is PWYP’s ask?

Host governments

Host (or producer) governments refer to the governments of those countries where companies extract oil, gas and minerals and pay revenues to the state.

Publish What You Pay (PWYP) calls on these governments to:

• Remove any legal and extra-legal obstacles to the full disclosure of revenue payments made by extractive companies to the government, and the full disclosure of the receipts of such payments by the government.
• Ensure the disclosure of all extractive industry contracts, and related agreements between companies and governments, and ensure that contracts and licences are awarded to companies in a transparent manner.
• Work with citizen groups to develop mechanisms for overseeing the management and allocation of natural resource wealth.which include civil society groups as well as public agencies.;
• Ensure regular published independent audits of national resource companies;
• Include and clearly identify resource revenues in the national budget;
• Participate meaningfully in international efforts aiming to enhance transparency in the extractive industries, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and work with all relevant stakeholders to implement such initiatives.

Home governments of extractive companies

Home governments refer to the governments of those countries where companies are registered or raising capital. These governments have a responsibility both as home countries to extractive companies registered in their territory but also as donors.

Publish What You Pay calls on these governments to:

• Attach conditionality to non-humanitarian development assistance provided to resource-rich developing countries by donor agencies, which would require the publication of company payments and government receipts from the oil, gas and mining sectors;
• Ensure that extractive companies based in their jurisdiction practice the highest standards of transparency and avoidance of corruption.
• Emphasise transparent, fair, and accountable management of resource revenues in their bilateral relationships with all developing countries;
• Use their voice and vote to ensure that the World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund and other multilateral instutions place a priority on transparent, fair and publicly accountable revenue management in resource-rich countries, and ensure that this priority is mainstreamed across all their lending, technical assistance, advisory and other relationships with these countries.
• Support the development of international and national accounting standards for the extractive industries which require a country-by-country breakdown of company payments to all foreign governments;
• Work with financial market regulatory authorities to include a requirement for publicly traded extractive companies to publish a country-by-country breakdown of their payments to national governments, as a condition of listing
• Require export credit agencies extending support to extractive industry companies to require revenue and contract transparency criteria as a condition for such lending;
• Through development assistance and other programs, support the ability of governments to manage resource revenues and the ability of civil society organizations to monitor and hold their governments accountable;
• Support effective international efforts aimed at increased transparency of resource revenue payments by companies to developing countries and ensure that these efforts are actively supported by international institutions and groupings such as the United Nations and the G8 countries