World Bank commits to new standards for transparency over oil and mining revenues but falls short of full disclosure requirments

The World Bank this week announced new transparency standards for the oil, gas and mineral sector as part of its formal response to the Extractive Industries Review (EIR)1. The Bank’s proposed reforms include a commitment to requiring disclosure of revenue figures for “all new major [extractive industry] projects with immediate effect and all projects within two years.” World Bank President James Wolfensohn has stated that he “believes increased transparency to be absolutely essential” to reducing poverty.

The Publish What You Pay (PWYP)2 NGO coalition welcomes this step but maintains that it does not go far enough. Only a commitment to revenue disclosure in all forms of lending to the sector will deliver the benefits of transparency the bank claims to hold dear. Moreover, while the new standards will go some way towards supporting existing international initiatives such as the G8 Transparency Action Plan3 and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative4, they still do not go far enough in enabling the Bank to meet its own development objectives.

As a taxpayer-funded institution, the Bank has a clear responsibility to ensure its loans and development assistance to resource-rich developing countries alleviate poverty and promote development, rather than reward a borrower country’s failure to manage its own revenues properly. The UK and US governments indicated at the recent World Bank Board meeting that macro-economic revenue transparency should be pursued. PWYP welcomes this acknowledgement and calls for continued leadership on the issue.

Commenting on the recent decision by the World Bank, Reverend David Ugolor, Coordinator of the PWYP campaign in Nigeria, stated: “Full transparency and accountability is only possible when all revenue flows between companies and the government are disclosed and have public oversight. The World Bank must deliver fully on its commitment to increase transparency so that citizens can hold their government to account.”

Publish What You Pay is also calling on other multilateral development banks such as the EBRD, private banks, and export credit agencies to match the new World Bank standards in financing extractive industry projects, and for all lending to resource-rich developing countries to be conditional on revenue transparency. This is a vital means of addressing fundamental causes of poverty: poor transparency, corruption and mismanagement of revenues.

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Media contacts:
Diarmid O’Sullivan, Campaigner, Global Witness, +44 (0) 20 7561 6363
David Ugolor, PWYP Nigeria: +234 8023 448216, +234 522 58748
Henry Parham, Coordinator, Publish What You Pay: +44 (0) 77 6026 8959
pwyp

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