PWYP Global Assembly 2019 Communique

For other language version of this communiqué click here: Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish

1 February 2019 – Dakar, Senegal

We, the participants of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Global Assembly in Dakar, Senegal, representing civil society organisations from more than 50 countries, have come together to reflect on our collective achievements as a global movement and to chart an ambitious course of action in the coming five years to make oil, gas and mineral governance open, accountable, sustainable, equitable and responsive to all people.

To achieve our vision of a world where all citizens benefit from their natural resources, today and tomorrow, we have adopted a five year Global Strategy, Vision 2025: A people-centered agenda for the extractive sector. We have also elected our new leaders to the Global Council and adopted updates to our Governance Manual.

Vision 2025 will direct our efforts to defend and extend transparency by companies and governments; to leverage disclosure of information and data use to drive long lasting change; to increase citizen participation in natural resource governance; and to strengthen our global movement. Vision 2025 is grounded in an analysis of power dynamics and lays the ground for enhanced collaboration to promote normative, policy and behavioural changes in the sector to improve the lives of citizens now and in the future.

In light of pervasive corruption,  including bribery and illicit financial flows, in the extractive sector; the large scale and often irreversible negative social and environmental impacts of extraction on communities; the urgent need for a global energy transition to a low carbon economy; and women’s voices too often going unheard in decision making processes, we resolve to:

• promote gender equality and women’s meaningful participation in the governance of the extractive sector and advocate for the disclosure of gender-disaggregated data and other information of particular relevance to women in communities affected by oil or mining projects, in order to influence policy and practice which addresses and meets womens needs;
• continue to engage in multi-stakeholder initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) to advance our strategic goals. We will work with stakeholders in these and other initiatives such as the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) to ensure that citizens have the information they need; and to ensure they have the capacity to use data to improve participation and engage meaningfully in policy making processes;
• defend the rights of citizens to fundamental freedoms including to free expression and peaceful assembly and association. PWYP will stand up for and protect its members by initiating and coordinating global solidarity and advocacy actions;  
• continue to connect with other civil society movements, including the human rights, women’s rights, tax justice, open data, open contracting and climate justice movements, with a view to forging diverse and resilient alliances in support of sustainable and equitable development.

We look forward to participating in the 2019 OGP Summit and EITI Global Conference, among other fora, to advance PWYP’s global priorities, and to working hand in hand with the incoming chair of the EITI, H.E. Helen Clarke.

We call on:

• the EITI international board to ensure that the EITI remains a relevant global standard for extractives transparency by revising the Standard to include: active inclusion of women in the implementation of the initiative and the disclosure of gender-disaggregated data; a requirement to publish contracts and licenses; an encouragement to disclose environmental payments alongside the required social payments; a requirement to disclose commodity trading information on a sale-by-sale basis;
• governments to establish or improve the mandatory disclosure of payments by oil, gas, mining and commodity trading companies incorporated or publicly listed in their jurisdictions;   
• governments to establish public registries of the beneficial owners of companies operating along the extractive sector value chain in order to shed light on the real owners of extractive sector companies;
• governments and companies to commit to the public disclosure of contracts and licences governing the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals;
• governments, companies and intergovernmental institutions including multilateral development banks to ensure meaningful consultation and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) with and on the part of local communities before any planned extractive project is allowed to proceed or any significant project changes are implemented;
• governments, companies and intergovernmental institutions including multilateral development banks to acknowledge and explore, where citizens demand this, the concept of oil, gas and minerals as a shared intergenerational inheritance;
• extractive companies to publicly disclose their CO2 emissions as well as their exposure to climate-related financial risks.

The PWYP Global Council on behalf of all PWYP coalitions and members

Chadwick Llanos, Asia Pacific

Dupleix Kuenzob, Africa Steering Committee

Chenai Mukumba, Anglophone Africa

Mariatou Amadou, Francophone Africa

Aigul Sultanova, Eurasia

Miles Litvinoff, Europe and North America

Athayde Motta, Latin America

Adnan Bahiya, MENA

Isabel Munilla, Global Reach

Joe Williams, Global Reach