Results Story

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) fosters transparency and accountability in the oil, gas, and mining sectors in the 35 countries that voluntarily take part. Soon after Yemen joined the EITI in 2007, implementation of the EITI in that country stalled as Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and extractive companies struggled to reach consensus on revenue reporting requirements. Since EITI is a consensus-based initiative, Yemen’s EITI Secretariat at the Ministry of Oil and Minerals was reluctant to force companies to submit to reporting requirements, and CSO’s in Yemen needed help to better organize themselves and their efforts to foster the EITI process.

As the first Middle Eastern country to join EITI, Yemen is symbolically important to the initiative. So staff at the World Bank’s Oil, Gas, and Mining Department were eager to respond when Yemeni CSOs requested a South-South Knowledge Exchange with their peers in Kazakhstan, where EITI implementation was more advanced. In September 2010, World Bank staff facilitated a knowledge exchange for a Yemeni delegation to visit Kazakhstan to learn how to engage more successfully in the EITI process. 

“The visit provided a very valuable opportunity for all of us to be exposed to the experience of the CSOs in Kazakhstan and their role in the EITI,” said Mr. M. Al-Najjar, Yemen EITI Council Secretary.“It was useful to learn how they built coalitions nationally and how they...