A New EITI

Okay, so it was cool to be elected today to the EITI board. But let's talk about what was actually a little bit interesting if you had been with me at Doha today.

Big-picture macroeconomic 'aha' moment: listening to George Soros speak at the National Oil Company workshop put on by Revenue Watch. I have gotten to listen to George quite a bit on the financial crash and the broader economic crisis over the past few months. Today what I heard that was new and fascinating was how he connected them to the collapse of oil prices. He observed that as the financial crisis gathered pace with the sub-prime mortgage meltdown two things happened: first of all, there was an increasing tendency for investors to seek profits by accumulating natural resources as a hedge; this led to a boom and a bubble in oil prices, partially explained by the fact that the market bought into the deceptive notion of Peak oil. (It's misleading because the half-life of oil projects can move a lot depending on the price, so in fact the potential for creating new energy can be considerably more elastic than the markets believe). Oil prices rose through 2008 without a corresponding rise in demand or consumption. Second, as the credit crunch progressed the dollar declined; this facilitated the price rise but paradoxically also a production drop as it became tempting for producers to keep the oil in the ground rather than monetizing above ground. To do so would have been to take an appreciating commodity and decrease its value by selling it for progressively depreciating dollars. Got that?

At the EITI board the clear emotional highpoint was the validation of Azerbaijan as the first EITI compliant country. As the motion passed the vote someone (was that Karina?) let out a whoop which brought on sustained applause. The most righteous moment was civil society board members' clear and strong statements making it plain that Gabon's treatment of Marc Ona was totally unacceptable; in seeing off Gabon's board membership civil society and the others (including the US) made an implicit pledge to keep absolutely vigilant in the protection of civil society actors in the future. I got the sense in the subsequent discussion that Gabon would have wanted to stayed on the board, but their plans to do so just didn't materialize. Translation: Marc Ona may have been successfully intimidated, but Gabon won the battle but lost the...well just lost this battle for now; hence they were left to twist in the wind with nary a statement of support from governments or companies, save the valedictory praise from our Olympian, for providing the occasion for a "healthy" discussion.

At the Constitutional meeting the EITI Association was founded by a throng of activists in business attire. Why is Jonas Moberg looking at me that way?




An activist questioned the Chairman and Head of the Secretariat about a Mauritanian's candidacy as an alternate on the board.

Breaking-new-ground moment Lorenzo Delesgues of Integrity Watch Afghanistan and Haroun Mir of the Afghanistan Center for Policy Research and Studies flew in from Kabul. IWA has done a very good report (and the only publicly accessible one I know)on the Aynak copper mine deal with China, a staggering $3 bn investment from China Mettalurgical and others. I don't think this deal has gotten the attention it deserves: it might help create some balance between the drug and non-drug parts of Afghanistan's GDP. It was very cool that some of the sharpest minds on Afghanistan took part: Saad Mohseny and Ahmed Rashid.

Celebrity moment of the day Delegates nibbled kebabs and coconut rice under the palms with the former president of Botswana, Azerbaijani Finance Minister Samir Sharifov, the Qatari Minister of Oil and Gas, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. These are the kind of progressive international political personalities that make natural resource transparency nerds like me very excited.

The putting-it-all-back-into-perspective moment Over drinks with Oxfam's indomitable Bennett Freeman Simon Taylor inspirational director of Global Witness said: "I am amazed at how far we've come in so short a time, but there's still so much left to do. I mean, Jesus Christ! we won the basic argument back in 2002 and still in 2009 we have only partially succeeded in some places in accomplishing it."

A good thought going in to tomorrow's meeting.


Neophyte blogger revelation that I don't need to reveal: I am still figuring out uploading and layout of photos. But you get the general idea.