BK presents in Myanmar importance of CSO participation in EITI

BK Vice-President Mr. Allan Barnacha presented on the PWYP Vision 2020 and analysis of EITI report for policy from the CSO perspective in Yangon, Myanmar last December 9-14, 2015.

Mr. Barnacha presented on two occasions held in Yangon one being organized by the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability (MATA) for their National Assembly and another for the National Conference of the Myanmar EITI Multi-Stakeholder Group.

Mr. Barnacha discussed to a crowd of CSO representatives in December 10 a presentation titled “PWYP Vision 2020: A world where all citizens benefit from their natural resources, today and tomorrow”. In this presentation, he shared the four Strategic Pillars of the said vision and the options for campaign in each pillar. He emphasized pillar #4 (“Practice what you preach) which touches on governance among PWYP members saying good governance applies to civil society as well. This pillar dictates that PWYP members must ensure that their governance principles, membership standards, governance structure and financial reporting mechanisms are in line with transparency and accountability principles.

On the following day, he shared the experience of CSOs in the Philippines in using EITI data for policy reforms in areas such as tax policy reform in mining and coal, rationalization of fiscal incentives, and increasing share of local governments from mining revenues. In a presentation titled “Analyzing EITI report for policy change: CSO perspective”, he talked about how CSOs can maximize the use of EITI using other existing data for further analysis. He also mentioned the limitations of EITI along with the possibilities that comes with the disclosures and its contribution to improving natural resource governance in the Philippines.

​Myanmar was accepted as an EITI candidate country last July 2014.