New EITI Civil Society Board members join the EITI International Board

New EITI Civil Society Board members were selected to join the International Board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) for the three-year term June 2019-2022 at the EITI Conference in Paris on 17 June 2019.

The new composition of the CSO representation on the EITI Board is:

Jean Aimé Brice Georges Mackosso
Commission Diocesaine Justice et Paix, Congo Brazzaville

Brice MACKOSSO was born in 1969 in Pointe Noire in the Republic of Congo. After attending school at the Notre-Dame de Loango Seminary, he graduated from the University Marien Ngouabi with a degree in law. In 1997, he co-founded the Commission Justice et Paix au Congo Brazzaville (Commission for Justice and Peace in Congo-Brazzaville). After the armed conflict in the country in 1997, Brice starts focusing more on the work for transparency in the extractive industries. This work leads to a Declaration by Congo Episcopal Conference on “Oil and the Mission of the Church in Congo” in June 2002. He is also founder of the first African Coalition Publish What You Pay in 2003 and participated in the launch of the EITI both internationally and locally. In April 2006, he is arrested due to his work related to the transparency of the extractive industries, but later released thanks to international pressure. He joins the EITI Implementation Committee in 2008 from its inception in Congo Brazzaville to date. He has been coordinator of the Justice and Peace Commission and alternate member of the EITI Board for the period 2016-2019. He is currently Deputy Coordinator of the Congolese Coalition Publish What You, and Coordinator of the Campaign ‘Tournons La Page’ in Congo Brazzaville.

Mtwalo Msoni [Alternate]
Publish What You Pay Zambia, Zambia

Born on the 10th of September 1992. Mtwalo Msoni is an Economist and Research with over 5 years of practical experience leading on both theoretical, analytical and field research making use of statistical analysis and economic data. Making use of this expertise Mtwalo has lead and co-authored more than 8 research papers on Extractive Industry and Governance, and Economic Justice. He has further been involved with consultancy work with the United Nations Development Progamme, Oxfam, Transparency International, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction and the Centre for Trade Policy and Development.

Mtwalo is the National Coordinator of the Publish What You Pay Zambia Coalition and is spearheading the Zambia Civil Society Technical Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. Mtwalo Msoni is also serving in his 4th year on the Zambia Extractive Industry Transparency Initiate (ZEITI) Board, a position he has held since the age of 22. Mtwalo has expertise in evidence based advocacy working at community, national and regional level on; Taxation, Natural Resource Governance, National Budgeting and Planning, Environmental Protection, Sustainable Development, Investment, Trade and Development, Transparency and Accountability. In addition to this, Mtwalo also has proven expertise in Institutional Capacity Development and Coalition Building.

Oleksiy Orlovsky
International Renaissance Foundation, Ukraine

Oleksiy Orlovsky is a lawyer, master of public administration, PhD in constitutional law. Oleksiy has been working at International Renaissance Foundation (Ukrainian brunch of Open Society Foundations) since February 2007 in the position of Democratic Practice Program Director. The Program is leading by Mr. Orlovsky was responsible for support of drafting beneficial ownership in Ukraine and for its present implementation as a part of obligations of the Government of Ukraine in OGP Action Plans. He has big experience as a lecturer of National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He has been a member of public councils under different Ministries (he has been the Head of Public Council of Ministry of Justice). In 2012-2014 Oleksiy was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Ukraine. He is a member of Ukrainian EITI Multi-Stockholders Group and EITI International Board (since 2016).

Mariya Lobacheva [Alternate]
Echo Public Association, Kazakhstan

Mariya Lobacheva is program director at Public Association Echo. Her work includes managing a research and advocacy strategy to promote transparency and citizen participation. Mariya has been working on the implementation of the EITI in Kazakhstan for 15 years. She’s also a moderator of the Dialogue Platform on the EITI. The Dialogue Platform brings together NGO coalitions advocating for transparency and accountability in the extractive industry in Kazakhstan. She presented civil society in the EITI Multi-Stakeholder Group in Kazakhstan for three terms. Mariya has carried out several analytical works related to the extractive sector’s influence on the local population, as well as civic participation in income management at the subnational level. Her work “Social payments of extractive companies. Issues of transparency and public participation.” was taken by the Agency for Civil Service and Anti-Corruption of Kazakhstan to exclude corruption risks in managing these payments.

Erica Westenberg
Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), USA

Erica Westenberg is the Director of Governance Programs at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). She is a lawyer and provides policy advice on extractive sector transparency and good governance in resource-rich countries worldwide, as well as in international multi-stakeholder initiatives. Prior to joining NRGI, she was in the energy and infrastructure group at Skadden Arps, where she advised clients on energy, natural resource, and infrastructure projects and public-private partnerships in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States. She was highly involved in the development of the 2013 EITI Standard, the 2016 EITI Standard, and the EITI Civil Society Protocol. Recently, she represented civil society in the multi-stakeholder working group that developed proposals for the 2019 EITI Standard. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, a M.Sc. in development management from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in government from Harvard College.

Simon Taylor [Alternate]
Global Witness, United Kingdom

Simon Taylor is a co-founder and director of Global Witness, launching Global Witness’ oil and corruption campaign in 1999. This work began the global call for transparency and accountability for the oil, gas and mining sectors, around the relationship between extractive industry companies and the people who live in resource-rich countries – people who are, more often than not, desperately poor. Exposing corruption in these sectors led to Global witness’ conception of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Campaign, which Simon co-launched in 2002 with other NGOs.

PWYP’s interests have expanded from a focus on revenue streams to the wider extractive industry governance framework, including transparency of contracts and their fiscal terms, disclosure of the beneficial owners of companies, environmental impact disclosure and genuine free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). As a movement, we are moving from transparency to accountability.

Cielo Magno
Bantay Kita; School of Economics University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines

Dr. Cielo Magno is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines’ School of Economics. She represents the civil society in the international board of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). Prior to being a member of the international EITI board, she coordinated Publish What You Pay Philippines and was a founding member of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in the Philippines. She sits as a member of the board in a number of organizations including Bantay Kita-PWYP Philippines, Action for Economic Reforms and Center for Energy, Ecology and Development. She is also a member of the Executive Session on Extractives Industries of the Center for Sustainable Investment (CCSI). She was a member of the Global Council of PWYP. Her publications include topics on mining taxation, natural resource governance, environmental regulation, and civic space. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in economics from the University of the Philippines. As a Fulbright scholar, she earned her PhD in Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston.

Diana Kaissy [Alternate]
The Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI), Lebanon

My name is Diana Kaissy and I am the executive director of the Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative-LOGI. Since 2011 I have been working directly with other civil society organizations across the globe to collectively influence and reform the extractive industries through the use of the EITI as a transparency tool. Through supporting a nationwide process of civil society elections for the MSG, we were able to strengthen the Iraqi civil society’s engagement in the extractive sector in 2015. In 2018, and in collaboration with other civil society actors and guidance from PWYP, we were able to produce the first civil society EITI guide. At the national level, I supported civil society in Lebanon to develop and endorse the Code of Conduct that is currently being used to guide civil society’s elections for the Lebanese MSG.

For the next 3 years, our activities will be dedicated to unlocking the true potential of the EITI by focusing on beneficial ownership at the sub-contractual levels.

César Leonidas Gamboa Balbín
Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR), Peru

Executive Director of Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR), a Peruvian NGO that promotes natural resources governance in the Peruvian Amazon and is a member of local and national MSG of Peru. Cesar Gamboa is a Lawyer and Doctor of Law and Political Sciences, he is a professor of the environmental management system, indigenous people’s rights, and natural resources governance in Peru. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Fondo Casa de Brasil, the American NGO Bank Information Center BIC, and participated at Latin American and Caribbean civil society networks to improve transparency, access to information, and citizen participation. In the last three years, he was a member of EITI Board, attending the validation committee and outreach & candidature committee, and promoting with the other CSO board members, the inclusion of environmental reporting as a new EITI standard.

Óscar Pineda [Alternate]
Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research (PODER), Mexico

Óscar Pineda is a Senior Researcher and Community Organizing Coordinator at PODER where he facilitates community research and organization processes with ground organizations facing extractive projects. He is also part of the Group of Civil Society Organizations involved in the EITI implementation process in Mexico where Oscar has been working along with all CSO members in transparency and corporate accountability subjects.

Find out more about the selection process on CBI’s website.