Eiti & Csr
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABBREVIATION:
Confederation of Business Industries
Corporate organisations
Corporate Social Responsibility
Democratic Republic of Congo
Developing Countries
Extractive Industry
Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative
Foreign Oil companies
International Advisory Group
Memorandum of understanding
Multi-Donor Trust Fund
National Stakeholders Working Group
Production sharing agreements
State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan
SOFAZ
Trinidad and Tobago
CHAPTER 1
1. Introduction
The Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) was sponsored and launched by the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair in September 2002 at the World Summit for sustainable development in Johannesburg . Its aim amongst other things is to encourage and promote accountability and transparency in the affairs of the Extractive Industry (EI). This initiative has been welcomed with open arms and viewed as a good aspect of corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
It has been designed in such a way that for it to effectively function in the light of its principles, participation from the government, the EI practitioners and the civil society is compulsory. There are four main levels of implementation of the EITI namely; the endorsement, initiation, implementation and review stages and every participant must undergo all four.
Developing Countries (DCs) rich in mineral resources are the main focus of the initiative. About 25 countries so far have signed on to the initiative, all at different levels of implementation. A group of European Countries voluntarily donated funds to financially back the initiative. It is interesting to note that Nigeria and Azerbaijan have begun publishing reports of payments made to the governments.
As easy as it may sound, the whole EITI process is quite technical and plagued with controversies and challenges in implementation. For example a lot of countries are yet to fully implement the principles despite signing on to same. Various reasons have been adduced for this. Most countries in fact have not gone beyond the first stage. Some only pay lip service to the initiative. For its principles to thrive in DCs, these obstacles must be surmounted.
The central focus of this paper is on EITI in DCs and the challenges they are likely to face in implementing the initiative. In doing so Chapter 1 briefly touches on the CSR, its expectations, while chapter 2 sheds light into the EITI, its principles, aims and objectives as well as how it is to function. Chapter 3 focuses on the nexus between CSR and EITI and how the EITI is being implemented in some developing countries. The challenges being faced in implementing the initiative and the EIs views on the initiative as a whole. Chapter 4 concluded the paper by making some recommendations on how the initiative is can be enhanced and how EITI can enhance CSR.