Save the Children demands end to ‘resource curse’ on world's pooreset children
Дата: 17 Jun 2003
On the eve of the first international, high level and public meeting of the Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Save the Children, the UK’s leading
international children’s charity, is calling on governments and company leaders to seize
the opportunity to increase financial transparency, in order to alleviate the corruption and
conflict afflicting more than 700 million poor children in mineral-rich countries.
With the spiralling situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo providing a tragic
example, Save the Children’s new report – Lifting the Resource Curse – highlights the
increased likelihood of private armies, corruption, poor economic growth and child
poverty in developing countries with large, lucrative mineral reserves. Congo – with a
vast cache of minerals including gold, coltan, silver, zinc , uranium, diamonds and oil–
has seen over 3 million people die since 1998. More than 4 out of 10 children die before
they reach their first birthday.
Mike Aaronson, Save the Children’s Director General said: “ The ‘resource curse’ is
unjust. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child children have the right to
information that affects their well being; this must include payments being made for their
country’s natural resources. Oil, gas and mining companies could, by simply publishing
the revenues they pay governments, allow civil society to engage further with
government on investment of these revenues. Host governments have obligations under
the UNCRC to make this information available and to invest revenues in vital health and
education services. We cannot afford to wait or waste time, we must agree now a
comprehensive and mandatory approach on revenue transparency.”
In many cases the oil revenues benefit the elite, enabling luxury lifestyles to the detriment
of thousands of children who are condemned to poverty or whose lives are at risk.
However, there are countries that have managed to transform their mineral assets into
benefits for children and their families. Botswana now has the second highest public
expenditure on education in the world, as a proportion of GNP, since its diamond cache
was discovered 30 years ago. Key to this has been the transparency of revenues going to
the government and its wise management of this income.
Save the Children believes that by highlighting success stories like Botswana and
focussing on positive, practical and achievable approaches that governments, extractive
companies and civil society can implement, the ‘resource curse’ can be lifted.
Save the Children is calling for the following key approaches:
- Publish all payments made by extractive companies and received by governments.
Save the Children believes that a key impetus towards improved transparency and
resource management could be created by the full disclosure of payments from
companies - Institute full transparency and improved management of mineral resource revenues
by government. Governments of resource rich countries should strive to institute
full transparency in their management of mineral resource revenues and undertake
measures to enable economic and political stability. - Strengthen civil society capacity to monitor transparency and improve resource
management Donor governments and IFIs (eg World Bank) can support this work.The EITI public meeting to be held in central London tomorrow – June 17th, – is
expected to be attended by Prime Minister Tony Blair, high level representatives from
governments, international agencies, extractive industry companies, shareholders and
investors. Save the Children, a founder member of the Publish What You Pay Coalition
of more than 130 NGOs from 33 countries, is calling on the meeting to agree a
mandatory and global regulatory approach to full disclosure of all payments made to
governments and national authorities by all extractive industries.
For the children whose lives are being devastated by collapsing basic services and
corruption, the leaders attending the EITI meeting tomorrow could make a real
difference to their survival and development.__________________________________________________________________________________
For further details please contact: Sheila Boswell, Save the Children UK Media Unit
020 7 716 2214 email s.boswell@scfuk.org.uk. For copies of The Resource Curse – ensuring extractive industries benefit children please call 020 7 716 2280 or visiting our
website www.savethechildren.org.Notes to Editors
- The Publish What you Pay campaign was launched in June 2002 by Mike Aaronson
of Save the Children, George Soros and Global Witness. The Publish What you Pay
Coalition is calling on representatives attending the EITI Meeting – June 17th – to
agree a comprehensive, mandatory framework to revenue transparency. See
www.publishwhatyoupay.org - In September 2002, at the World Summit for Sustainable Development, Prime
Minister Tony Blair announced the UK government’s intention to lead an Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to prevent mismanagement of revenues
paid by oil, gas and mining companies. - The oil, gas and mining industry is important to more than 50 developing countries,
which are home to 3.5 billion people Yet more than 1.5 billion people (of whom
more than 700 million are children) live on less than $2 per day, while 12 of the
world’s 25 most mineral dependent states, and six of the world’s most oil dependent
states, are classified by the World Bank as highly indebted poor countries with the
world’s worst human development statistics. - Save the Children UK is a member of the International Save the Children Alliance,
the world’s leading children’s rights organisation with members in 29 countries and
programmes in more than 100. - In 1923 Save the Children’s founder drew up the Declaration on the Rights of the
Child, which in 1989 became The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It has
Been ratified by all but two countries (Somalia and the USA.)
_____________________________________________________________________ - The Publish What you Pay campaign was launched in June 2002 by Mike Aaronson
