In Lima last week, Omidyar Network co-hosted an event that explored how data about the extractive industries can be used for storytelling. Storytelling in this sense is about making often obscure and complex data more accessible and meaningful in order to drive greater transparency and accountability. The fruits of these efforts are extremely helpful to the storytellers, such as journalists, NGOs, and advocates, and to the beneficiaries, who include governments, businesses, and the public at large.
My colleagues at Omidyar Network and I are very pleased to be a part of this ongoing effort and thank the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Secretariat for convening the event and the IMF and World Bank for co-hosting. As José Ugaz, the president of Transparency International, put it at the EITI global conference, it’s not enough to just put information on a website if citizens don’t understand it. Storytelling is crucial.
One of the major themes that emerged from this convening was the role that open data can play in storytelling. Global Witness explained how it produced its reports on the opaque and largely unaccountable jade industry in Myanmar, which the organization estimated was valued around $31 billion in 2014 (around half of the country’s GDP). Such innovative data storytelling would have been impossible without access to a treasure trove of open data on companies, courtesy of OpenCorporates, which helped expose the ownership of jade operations in Myanmar.
Another significant theme was the need for open data standards for the extractive industries. Several initiatives are underway to produce standardized approaches to reporting under EITI. As these develop, we would urge the EITI to build on this convening by fostering a community of data users, practitioners, publishers, and supporters. This community can advise on the creation of data standards and applications for data use. A useful model to consider is the Technical Advisory Group that supports the International Aid Transparency Initiative – a group that could crowd invaluable expertise and learning from other sectors and initiatives and inject a demand-driven approach to setting data standards.
Outside of the conference and beyond these specific themes, we believe that the EITI is undertaking an important role. It has created a unique mechanism for multi-stakeholder dialogue among government, extractive companies, and civil society, both at the global and country level, and it has developed a standard for the reporting of activities, revenues, sales, and licensing by country governments and extractives companies.
Critically this country-level reporting is beginning to produce a wealth of data, allowing detailed analysis, as well as the reconciliation of government and corporate financial reporting. This is an important step and could deliver huge improvements in fiscal transparency and governance for resource-rich countries, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa where 2011 revenues from natural resources accounted for, on average, 45% of total government revenues.
Thanks to EITI, member organizations such as Publish What You Pay, and many progressive government and corporations, we may be on the cusp of an accountability revolution. Journalists and NGOs will have the information and skills necessary to “audit the books,” and citizens will have the information to ensure their government is properly representing their interests.
However, despite the progress, the effective use of this data is still a challenge. For example, financial data is often published in formats that make extraction and analysis cumbersome, and it is rare that data sets conform to common standards, hampering comparability and interpretation. Data skills in and outside government are also a key constraint.
We believe what’s necessary is detailed, project-by-project reporting on extractives. Such reporting, when combined with valuable contextual data on company ownership (beneficial ownership), national budget data, and open contracting, has the potential to provide, for the first time, comprehensive and accessible information on one of the world’s most valuable economic sectors.
Omidyar Network is particularly keen to further explore the possibilities that an open data approach would enable. We have supported Natural Resource Governance Institute’s pioneering work to catalyze the development of open data standards for extractives, and we are encouraged that the EITI board is currently considering its first open data policy. We hope that this year will see the EITI take a strong position on open data, strengthening disclosure and accelerating transparency within the extractive sectors.