An international coalition of civic societies advocating for mandatory disclosure for transparency in the mining sector has urged local activists to make strategic interventions through data driven advocacy.
Publish What You Pay director Elisa Peters made these remarks in an exclusive interview with 263chat, on the sidelines of a workshop for data extractors working on the extractive industry.
PWYP Zimbabwe, housed under the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) is facilitating the data extractors’ workshop.
Peters said the mandate of PWYP, a coalition of 800 civic society, community based organisations, was a push for mandatory disclosure of payments made to governments by mining companies.
She said through extraction of data, civic society can advocate for transparency and greater accountability of revenue from extractives.
“We push a global campaign coalition of 800 international civic society including community based organisations, faith based organisation, pushing for transparency and accountability in the mining sector.
“The large part of civic society we work with is on the continent (Africa) and we basically advocate for transparency and accountability in the extractive sector around the world.
“So our single task is the mandatory disclosure and in this regard data can impact better for civic interventions,” she said.
Peters said through their work, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) was formed leading to a transformation on disclosure, with the European Union members states adopting mandatory disclosure.
She said with calls for transparency now being answered through release of data, there was need to leverage the available information to hold governments and mining firms accountable,
“We are now at an exciting part of our campaign as we are in a position where the campaign got what it wanted and we are starting to get the data.
“Through our work the EITI was formed with information payments, mining contracts, we are basically getting an avalanche of data around the extractive sector, now we are focusing on making sense of the data.
“This data should be leveraged into advocacy campaigns which should translate into accountability, when we have access we should use this transparency to get accountability from governments,” she said.
Jed Miller a special development consultant to NGOs and foundations on digital strategies and human rights, said there were great opportunities for African civic society through the use of data.
He said through access to data civic society can clearly trace the development trajectories of mining activities within their localities, through mandatory disclosure.
“Focusing on public sector, African NGOs have an opportunity due to the increasing availability of data from international corporations.
“Through such disclosure NGOs can see for themselves whether the promise of economic development, locals can now track if mining has translated into tangible opportunities for economic development.
“Previously NGOs and community groups where relying on the discretionary disclosure of companies. Too reliant on consultants to help sift through information, however with open data and tools for data analysis visualization of this data has become increasingly available and easy to use,” he said.
Adding that, “Even small orgnanisations can develop habits and tactics of their own to turn data into knowledge and knowledge into advocacy, not only for their own organizational goals but for greater benefit of a growing Africa open data ecosystem.”
