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Transparency and extractive industries – Chances for development or a resource curse?
Anna Nordmann from the ONE team in Germany reports back on an event held recently in Berlin.
Transparency in the extractive industries. It’s a topic that is quite specific and complex. But fortunately the invited experts and politicians at ONE’s event at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences last month were able to provide some valuable insights.
More than 140 guests were told by State Secretary Pfaffenbach from the Ministry of Economy and Technology about steps the German Government has already taken in the field of transparency: Germany supports the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and is also pushing forward the transparency issue at the EU level. As an example he mentioned the certification process of tropical timber.
Mr Pfaffenbach also praised ONE as being a driving force behind transparency initiatives, as well as compulsory transparency regulations along the lines of those in the US. He said it was still uncertain however whether Germany will adopt the US model on a one-on-one basis since the discussion process was still in the early stages of development. But despite this, he said that he believes that steps towards legally binding legislation will certainly happen. As you can imagine, hearing this from the State Secretary made the team from ONE very happy!
But why is transparency so important? Professor Dr. Reisen, from the OECD Development Centre, explained that countries with little resources often prosper while those with huge commodity resources are economically depressed. Why is this? The truth is that money from commodity trade often stays in the hands of corrupt politicians and is not being spent on the countries’ development. By publishing processes and payments, corruption could be prevented, says Prof. Reisen. But he goes one step further: He calls for a determination by independent appraisers of the market value of exploration ventures, in order to identify license payments that are too small. If the license payments are extraordinarily small, it is very possible that bribes are flowing through other informal channels.
Fortunately, Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner, from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs – SWP, summarized the “Cardin-Lugar-Amendement”, the US-law that came into force in summer 2010. Concretely, this means that every commodity company listed on the US stock market is obliged to publish payments to the governments of those countries where resources are exploited.
In the debate on transparency, many businesses often raise the argument that transparency initiatives are counterproductive for the development of commodity rich countries, because companies might back away from investing in them. The experts on our panel did not see this danger however. Joseph Williams from Publish What You Pay, a global network of organisations that has been campaigning on this issue for years, made the point that investors share this interest in extractive industry transparency as they will be better able to assess risk in the highly volatile natural resource sector. As far as companies are concerned Shell supports, in principle, a ‘fit for purpose’ mandatory global reporting rule for all companies across the globe. Shell is listed on the US stock market and therefore will have to comply with the new US law. For competitors who are only listed on European stock markets this does not apply yet.
Overall the evening offered many insights and I’m curious to see what will happen next in Germany in the coming months. We’ll keep you posted.
German development assistance receives a check-up
Approximately every five years the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) puts its member states’ development assistance practices to the test. And this year it was Germany’s turn to receive the DAC Peer Review. Starting in early spring experts from Australia, UK and the OECD have studied German development policies, talked to decision makers, and interviewed aid recipients in Zambia and Morocco. Then they sat down with the development ministry to compile a final report including concrete suggestions on how to improve German development assistance.
First up the good news: Eckhard Deutscher, head of the OECD-DAC, confirmed that Germany had indeed started a critical reform process: The number of partner countries had been reduced from 84 to 57 to allow for better division of labor and focus. And the plan to merge the implementing agencies InWEnt, GTZ and DED in a new entity was a “step in the right direction”.
However, the report also notes that of Germany’s bilateral aid only 40% went to the 57 partner countries. The peer review is therefore critical of the continued strong support of large emerging countries such as China or India. Africa in particular had barely benefited from increases in bilateral funds – out of the 50% that were promised only a fraction had actually reached the continent. ONE had come to the same conclusion in the 2010 DATA Report.
And the OECD is worried that Germany might not reach the target of aid as 0.7% of Gross National Income by 2015. So they’re suggesting Germany commit to a timetable to still reach the goal. The UK could serve as a model here. Only this year the new British government announced how – despite the current financial situation – they intend to reach the 0.7% goal by 2013.
The government in Berlin has itself maintained that increased aid effectiveness was among the issues they wanted to focus on during their term of office. In 2011 donors will be meeting in South Korea to discuss whether development assistance had in fact improved enough since the Paris Declaration was signed in 2005. Until then the German government should prove that increased effectiveness is indeed dear to its heart. With the new DAC Peer Review they have now been provided with a blue print.
Dankeschön Alicia!
I’m in Paris after finishing my 5th U2 360° show in Germany – 2 on the 2009 European leg and 3 on this one.
At all of those shows my magnificent colleague from the German office, Alicia, joined me for the fun. It was great having Alicia take care of the volunteers from the first invitation, to the moment we took them in to the show at the end of the day. She came at the whole thing with an contagious energy, every time heading out as soon as should could to help sign people up.
A big dankeschön to Alicia, wish you could be at every show!
1:0 for Education
Last week the ONE team in Germany, together with our partners at 1GOAL, organized a soccer match to raise awareness for what we hope will be the lasting legacy, and real goal of this year’s Soccer World Cup: Education for all!
A team of artists including musician Rea Garvey and actors Axel Pape, Timmi Trinks and Timon Wloka faced a student team from Berlin’s Sophie Scholl School. During half time and after the game singer Judy Bailey performed her 1GOAL anthem “Spirit of Freedom” and other songs. As our photos show, spirits were good both on and off the field even though the students won by a little more than a margin: 17:4 was the final score!
ONE CEO David Lane meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Left to right: (back) Dr. Kumi Naidoo (Greenpeace International), Ulrich Post (VENRO), Jeremy Hobbs (Oxfam International), Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer (Doctors without Borders), Rob van Drimmelen (APRODEV)
(front) David Lane (ONE), Hubert Weinzierl (Deutscher Naturschutzring e.V.), Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jennifer Morgan (World Resources Institute, Director Climate and Energy), Regine Günther (Forum Environment and Development)
Ever since 2007 – when Germany hosted the G8 in Heiligendam – it has become a tradition of sorts ahead of the G8 summit for Chancellor Merkel to invite international NGOs to the Chancellery to discuss some of the most pressing globalization issues, and maybe take one or the other idea with her to the summit. As was the case last year climate change and development assistance were on top of the agenda, with ONE being represented by our CEO and President David Lane.
One of the most important topics at the G8 and G20 summits in Canada will be child and maternal health. And so we’re hoping that the Chancellor will take suggestions and ideas from this preliminary exchange of opinions with her to Muskoka in Canada and lead on strengthening proven interventions like GAVI and the Global Fund.
What gives you hope?
Last week ONE was at its first-ever Ecumenical Church Convention in Germany, which took place in Munich. At our booth, visitors could get information about ONE, become a ONE member or simply come up to us for a chat. Additionally, we asked people to leave a mark – virtually via video message or on our very real ‘post-it note’ wall – and asked them to answer 3 questions:
Our first question “What gives you hope?” pertained directly to the convention’s slogan leading many to name faith in God or the good in people; others draw hope from their family and friends, the sun, the sea or music….
Secondly, we wanted to know “What comes to mind when you think of Africa?” The answer diverged from poverty, HIV and injustice to countryside, music and African culture… It turned out that quite a few of our guests had visited Africa and told us about their experiences.
“Who will win the World Cup”? While some fans put their hopes in Ghana and South Africa, other visitors favoured Spain or the Netherlands. Not surprisingly, most of our visitors seemed to pin their hopes on Germany!
The video messages are all in German, but you can check out our pictures on the ONE Germany Facebook page to get an impression of the Church Convention.
What about you: What gives you hope? What comes to your mind when you think of Africa? And who do you think will win the World Cup?
Ethiopian Moments
In early April I had the honour to be part of a delegation travelling to Ethiopia at the invitation of Bread for the World and the Protestant Development Service (EED). We saw some amazing projects and had numerous discussions about the development opportunities and challenges in Ethiopia.
On the flight back I had a long conversation with another delegation member, who is sort of the ambassador of the Protestant Church to Germany and the EU, about all the everlasting impressions the trip had on us. We could think of so many and I’d like to share some of these with you:
Transparency is critical
“Everybody understands that building a school helps to fight poverty. They also understand that building a hospital helps to fight poverty. But that information might even be more important is not quite as easy to understand for most.” This is how one of the participants of our aid effectiveness day last week described the problem at hand. Aid achieves measurable results every day in many places around the world. Still aid can be improved. So ONE Germany asked: What does tomorrow’s effective development assistance look like?
First we invited experts from the German government, our NGO partners and multilateral institutions such as the OECD-DAC to discuss in two workshops what the Accra Agenda and the G8 are doing (or could be doing) to improve aid transparency.
African governments need information on what kind of donor support will be delivered by when. Donors need information to better coordinate their efforts. And civil society in North and South needs information – this is for example how ONE is finding out whether rich countries are keeping their promises, information that is then published in the annual DATA Report.
One of the panelists in the workshops was Bashiru Jumah from the Ghanaian Social Enterprise Development Foundation (SEND). SEND is increasing transparency in Ghana by gathering information on aid flows: they find out which funds are supposed to go where and then go to the recipients – in the villages – and assemble data on which funds arrived and what they were used for. This is quite a tedious job which requires lots of patience and hard work from volunteers all over the country. But it delivers great results: when the parliament learnt in April that money for school feeding programs did not make it to the schools as planned they immediately replaced the national coordinator for the program. Bashiru said about the role of his civil society in Ghana: “Civil society participates in implementing and controlling poverty alleviation efforts. And our government understands that they profit from that.”
In the evening we welcomed the development spokespersons from the 5 parties in the German parliament to a panel discussion.
Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz, Deputy Minister in the Development Ministry, opened the evening by confirming that while the German government was concentrating on improving aid effectiveness they would not forget their promises, one of which was to increase the ODA/GNI ratio to 0.7% by 2015.
What followed was a lively discussion among the development spokespersons about whether the new government’s efforts to reform the implementing organizations were sufficient, whether multilateral aid should be reduced in favor of bilateral aid, and which sectors were critical to development.
Development spokespersons in the German parliament: Ute Koczy (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen), Sascha Raabe (SPD), Harald Leibrecht (FDP), Holger Haibach (CDU/CSU), Heike Hänsel (Die Linke)
We closed out the day with a reception which allowed panelists and listeners to continue to exchange their views in more intimate conversations. And looking at the discussions we were confirmed: development assistance is reducing extreme poverty. But to make it most efficient and most effective it needs input from everyone concerned – and the first step on that path is to distribute information transparently.
Our Very First German ONE Workshop!
The first ONE volunteer workshop for volunteers from Berlin and the surrounding area took place last Saturday. Let it be said that we not only applaud the volunteers’ courage for attending this first-ever event, but also greatly appreciate their willingness to spend a sunny Saturday with us!
The day began with a joint breakfast and a comprehensive introduction about how ONE came to be, how it operates and its goals. In light of the upcoming Millennium Development Review Summit in New York, we also introduced the volunteers to the development goals before they got the chance to develop and present a quick overview about one of the goals to the rest of the group. Of course, we also took the time to brainstorm about how the volunteers can join the fight against extreme poverty – with concrete results!
They decided to form a Berlin ONE group and get together every last Friday of the month in order to plan activities. In addition, the volunteers learned how to write advocacy letters – some delegates can expect to receive ONE mail within the next days! Last but not least, we practiced approaching and recruiting new ONE members via role playing. We all know role playing can be quite difficult. Still, the exercise was actually very well-received. As one participant put it: “Although role playing is always somewhat horrible – it’s always good practice! Therefore, do it again!”
We came to a similar conclusion, not just regarding the role playing but the workshop as a whole. We are planning to conduct further workshops with ONE volunteers in areas beyond Berlin. Working with these motivated individuals was a lot of fun and we look forward to the next time!
Frank von Behren hands over Article ONE in Minden
Handover of Article ONE in Minden: handball player and ONE supporter Frank von Behren, Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter, ONE’s Alicia Blázquez and handball manager Horst Bredemeier.
Last year ONE ran the Article ONE campaign in Germany in the run up to the national elections in September.
Article ONE contained our key development policy demands and was signed by over 6300 people, among them approximately 120 parliamentarians as well as many intellectuals, artists and athletes.
One of the prominent signatories is Frank von Behren, former handball player with the German national team and future sports director of the famous handball team GWD Minden. He supported Article ONE with his name in the run-up to last year’s elections and now organized a meeting with Steffen Kampeter, Deputy Minister in the Federal Ministry of Finance – and also from Minden, East Westphalia.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Corruption, Germany, Transparency