The global Publish What You Pay (PWYP) civil society coalition concluded a three-day 10th Anniversary conference in Amsterdam today, Wednesday 19 September, hosted by the Dutch international development agency and PWYP member Cordaid. Two hundred and fifty transparency activists from 60 countries in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America participated in the event.The conference’s first day included a review of PWYP’s 10 year history, discussion of its future direction and a productive dialogue with representatives of industry, investors, governments and multilateral institutions. This concluded with PWYP urging the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to strengthen and broaden the EITI to provide more and better quality data, including disclosure of contracts, how deals are done and where the money is in national budgets.

PWYP delegates took stock of recent transparency legislation and rule-making in the US – Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act – and in the European Union. The second day of the conference coincided with a key European Parliament committee vote in favour of major new requirements for EU-listed and EU-based oil, gas, mining and forestry companies to report their payments to governments around the world on a county-by-country and project-by-project basis.

Welcoming these groundbreaking developments in the global regulatory framework, PWYPcalled on EU-listed and large private companies as well as the governments of EU Member States such as the Netherlands, France, the UK and Germany to support the passage of strong European legislation.

PWYP members also adopted a new global strategy and governance structure for the coalition’s future work by committing to three strategic pillars, focused on:

1. The ownership of natural resources, the decision to extract, extraction rights, and the terms and conditions of legal agreements between governments and extractive companies.
2. Continuing to campaign for full financial transparency from companies to provide quality data that will enable women, men and youth in resource-rich countries to hold companies and governments to account.
3. Translating transparency into accountability and ensuring that national and subnational-level governments of resource-rich countries use the revenues generated by their country’s extractive industries to benefit all citizens.

PWYP sees women as crucial actors in the campaign for extractive industry transparency and accountability and in mobilising oil, gas and mining revenues to bring about lasting change in the lives of citizens worldwide.

We also noted the rise of new economic powers such as Brazil, China and India and the need to engage their governments and companies to secure progress for our movement.

Amsterdam, 19 September 2012