More than 50 OGP countries depend on oil, gas and minerals as their most important sources of government and export revenues. However, evidence shows that their performance on human development indicators compares unfavorably to less-endowed countries. At the root of this underperformance is the failure by governments to properly address the institutional and policy challenges that come with the governance of natural resources.

Open government approaches can help detect corruption, safeguard community interests, improve the investment climate, and support environmental sustainability. 

Extractive industry commitments are a common area of activity within OGP and they are more frequently impactful and complete than commitments in other policy areas. According to assessments by OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), more than one in four extractives commitments have the potential to transform the status quo – double the rate of other commitments.

OGP and the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) work together to promote openness across the extractives sector, including in areas like beneficial ownership transparency, state-owned enterprises, contract transparency, gender and environment. OGP amplified the effectiveness of EITI by adding visibility to EITI commitments echoed in OGP action plans. The paper Seeking Synergy: OGP and EITI provides recommendations on how to leverage both initiatives to make meaningful reforms in extractive governance.

• Find synergies between Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and OGP: OGP members can improve extractives industries transparency by applying policies like open contracting and beneficial ownership to extractives sector management.
  • In Ghana, reformers have committed to opening up the contract process and publishing information about the beneficial owners of contracts.
  • Armenia is piloting a beneficial ownership registry with national metal mining companies before expanding to all sectors.
• Require that governments collect and disclose beneficial ownership information: including levels of ownership and any politically exposed people, and link this collection and screening to licensing systems and contract disclosure portals.
  • Nigeria created its first beneficial ownership registry to combat grand corruption, including in the oil industry. The country is also pursuing beneficial ownership through EITI that will require public disclosure of beneficial owners of oil, gas, and mining companies.
  • Ghana committed to opening up the procurement processes, publishing contracts in extractives and providing information on the beneficial owners of contracts.
• Go beyond the EITI standard in environmental disclosure to consider climate change mitigation and alternative-use analysis. 
  • Georgia committed to publish environmental risks and impacts before and during project planning, consulting with the scientific community and the general public throughout the process.

• Publicly disclose licenses and publish information on the licensing process.
  • Bulgaria created a public information system to disclose data about extractive resources, including registries of exploration licenses and concessions.
  • Indonesia published data and information regarding oil, gas, and mining activities, including a list of mining business license holders.
• Publish data on state-owned enterprises (SOEs). 
  • Mexico publishes bidding decisions and contracts entered by the state-owned oil company. 
  • Mongolia requires financial and operational reporting by state-owned enterprises.

• Ensure Equitable Impacts: Perform gender-responsive analysis in the project planning phase and publish environmental, health, and social impact assessments with gender-differentiated impacts of extractive industries.

• Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative – View our MoU here.
• Natural Resources Governance Institute – View our MoU here.
• OpenOil
• Oxfam International
• Publish What You Pay
• Técnicas Rudas
• Transparency International
• World Resources Institute