Paris Declaration Briefing: Transparency and Open Contracts in the Natural Resource Sector

With the Open Government Partnership Paris Summit coming up 7-9 December, government reformers and civil society campaigners working on the extractives and land sectors will be pleased to see that contract transparency and environmental disclosure will likely feature in the summit outcome document, the Paris Declaration. 
 
As part of the preparations, the hosting French government has written to all participating countries asking them to choose from a list of 21 collective actions and make a substantive contribution toward their implementation. The results of this process will be featured in the Paris Declaration.
 
NRGI and the World Resources Institute are pleased to highlight that action 8, developed with support from the OGP’s Openness in Natural Resources Working Group (ONRWG), focuses on transparency and open contracting in the oil, gas, mining, agriculture and forestry sectors. We strongly encourage countries to sign up and to help. We have put together a briefing document  that explores the concrete ways that governments and civil society organizations participating in OGP can achieve change on these issues.
 
Carole Excell is project director of The Access Initiative at the World Resources Institute. Rob Pitman is a governance officer with NRGI.