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The Chairman of the EITI international Board, Dr. Peter Eigen and Mr. Eddie Rich visited Liberia from October 4-7, 2009. The visit follows the earlier visit of a joint EITI/World Bank/African Development Mission to Liberia in May of this year. Dr. Eigen and Mr. Rich held meeting with the President of Liberia, Her Excellency Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Multi-stakeholders Steering Group of the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI), Civil Societies in Liberia, the Private Sector and a dinner meeting with Liberia’s donor partners which was arranged by the World Bank.

The most senior EITI delegation found the opportunity to attend a LEITI public awareness and outreach meeting in Bong Mines, Bong County. The meeting brought together over eight hundred participants from Fuamah District and its surrounding towns and villages. The meeting was also attended by the Bong County Legislative Caucus , the Superintendent of Bong County, and other County Officials, and the National Traditional Council of Liberia represented by Chiefs from the ten of the twelve counties of Liberia.

For his part, the Chairman of EITI International, Dr. Peter Eigen praised Liberia for the steps it has taken in complying with the new standards of resource management under the EITI. He thanked the Government of Liberia for the level of political being given to the EITI process in Liberia. Dr. Eigen also commended the civil society and the private sector as well as the Multi-stakeholders steering Group of the LEITI for the commitment being exhibited by them. He expressed happiness for the true nature of the multi-stakeholder process in Liberia.

Liberia civil society organizations involved with the Publish What You Pay Coalition which is an integral part of the EITI initiative worldwide received Dr. Eigen at its Resource Center on Crown Hill Broad Street.  Dr. Eigen was escorted to the PWYC meeting by Liberia’s Senior Extractive Industries Campaigner and Member of the EITI International Board, Atty. Alfred L. Brownell.  Cllr. Augustine Toe of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) welcome Dr. Eigen and Eddie Rich, Deputy Head and Regional Director for the Anglophone/Lusophone Africa and the Middle East to the PWYC Resource Center. He noted that Liberian CSOs were supportive of the EITI process and were unwavering in their determination to ensure that Liberia resources benefit its people.  He said they were elated that Dr. Eigen had taken time off his busy schedule to visit Liberia to get a first hand impression of what was obtaining in our resource governance. 

The PWYP Liberia coalition presented a position statement to the delegation. The statement was read by the President of Liberia National Student Union, Kwame Ross.  The statement noted the many achievements of the EITI campaign in Liberia including the publication of an EITI report, high level discussions and efforts to resolve discrepancies associated with the report and have participated in the validation process; the significance of legislating an Act creating the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI). The Act adequately strengthens EITI programs and implementation in Liberia, secures the present and future sustainability of the campaign and entrenches compliance of all parties in the extractive sector.

The statement welcomed the political will shown by Her Excellency President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to implement EITI, the Chairperson, Hon. Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, and members of the LEITI Multi-stakeholders Steering Group (MSG) and Liberia’s international partners for the support provided the Li berian campaign. However, despite this impressive achievement, PWYP indicated it is still deeply convinced that the task of transforming the culture of natural resources administration and governance into a more accountable and democratic one remains a serious challenge as there are still fears that Liberia’s natural resources are still a curse in not benefiting the citizenry.  Accordingly, there must be significant departure from past practices as a way of concretizing rhetorical commitments in statutes, the Constitution and Presidential pronouncements that the natural resources of Liberia belong to all Liberians and will be used for the betterment of all. 

The statement noted that the single most threat to the viability of the extractive sector in Liberia, in keeping with the euphoria that greeted the EITI campaign, is the urgent need to arrest the embarrassing trend in increasingly awarding mining, oil, agricultural and forestry concessions without the delivering the promised jobs, revenues and “the new day.”  PWYP also alluded to their many achievements which helped lead to the establishment of LEITI and proffered the following recommendations on Next Steps on the Liberian campaign:

1. The need for all Liberians to reflect, accept, strategize and enforce rights-based development in ways that the economic, social and cultural rights of community members are unconditionally respected;   

2. The need to work and reverse the current trend in participation and ownership by placing people and communities at the center of development and decision making. This would translate wealth from natural resources to the direct benefit of Liberians. The corresponding responsibility is to encourage Liberians to take active interest in closely following expenditures and disbursement of government resources as a way of determining whether the Government of Liberia is devoted to maximizing available resources to meeting its obligations especially vulnerable communities. For instance, major portion of the revenues from the extractive sector should be shifted to the educational sector so at to make provisions for vulnerable youth, children of widows and orphans to find their way back to schools. Proceeds from this industry should also be used for the construction of community libraries and public schools in order to breach the wide gaps between public and private academic institutions. This, we believe will stop the accelerated encroachment of poverty on our one-hundred-sixty-two-year old Republic;

3. The need to emphasize contract transparency by actively involving local communities and civil society. If investments in the extractive sector are to increases revenue and contribute substantially to poverty alleviation,   contract transparency is then an effective communication tool or vehicle in achieving these objectives. The signing of contracts should reflect meaningful public participation including the scrupulous inputs of communities hosting such concessions;

4. The need to balance investment and environmental management. Social Audits and/or Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) must be given top priority, and demonstrably seen as a necessary first step, in awarding contracts in the extractive sector; 

5. The EITI must not be seen as an additional burden on an already impoverished population, but seen as a campaign deeply rooted in restoring confidence-levels that community-based resources are not a curse but a blessing. In this way, the identification and implementation of mitigation plans as well as benefit-retention from extractive activities will have the support of community members;

6. There is a need to strengthen the formal oversight role of the National Legislature over the LEITI and its capacity to adequately review contracts with an objective to make extraction of our resources people-beneficial.  The substantive involvement of the legislature is crucial as it allows legislators to participate in outreaches that communicate the benefits of LEITI and its reports to their constituencies.  The links between data contained in LEITI reports and the National Budget are obvious; legislative involvement with the LEITI process can be useful in national budget debates and allocations;

7. Elevating the status of the Liberian campaign by making creative use of the LEITI report(s) to demand accountability—implementing outcomes of LEITI Reports. Shelving LEITI reports after publications and reconciliation without taking appropriate actions to continuously improve fiscal management of extractive revenues would undermine the LEITI, and make it irrelevant to the tracking of revenue flows, reduction of poverty and fight against corruption.

8. LEITI must move beyond mere publications and civil society must play a key role in galvanizing Liberians to follow the money beyond the reports ensuring the Government meets socio-economic and political obligations;  

9. The need to increase the oversight role of Liberian civil society in outreach on LEITI. Building capacity of civil society to take the lead in communicating LEITI and enforcing reports would be laudable.

Prof. Dr. Peter Eigen is a lawyer by training. He has worked in economic development for 25 years, mainly as a World Bank manager of programs in Africa and Latin America; from 1988 to 1991 he was the Director of the Regional Mission for Eastern Africa of the World Bank. Under Ford Foundation sponsorship, he provided legal and technical assistance to the governments of Botswana and Namibia.

In 1993 Eigen founded Transparency International (TI), a non-governmental organization promoting transparency and accountability in international development. From 1993 to 2005 he was Chair of TI and is now Chair of the Advisory Council. In 2005, Eigen chaired the International Advisory Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and became Chair of EITI in 2006. In 2007 he founded the Berlin Civil Society Center and chairs its Board.