Building Capacity in Francophone Africa

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	Participants in the PWYP workshop Photo: PWYP Cote d'Ivoire

From January 29 to February 2, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Africa organized a five-day workshop in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire on capacity building and advocacy for its francophone members, with attendees from a dozen different African nations.

Revenue Watch Deputy Africa Regional Coordinator Evelyne Tsague presented on core issues, including promotion of transparency and governance along the value chain, RWI's "knowledge hub" approachand the Natural Resource Charter. Deputy Director Antoine Heuty spoke on contract transparency, working with participants to map the access countries offer to contract terms, and discussing how they can use available information. In the vast majority of countries, civil society only has access to a select number of contracts through "backdoor" channels. Time spent analyzing a few contract clauses helped demystify contracts, demonstrated how activists can monitor contract terms more effectively and highlighted the need for a civil society guide to fiscal terms analysis.

Although PWYP Africa adopted a capacity building plan in 2007, it has not been implemented, and Tsague reported that the francophone coalition has been concerned about the lack of regional opportunities to expand their capacity. During the workshop international partners, including RWI, shared their capacity building programs. RWI is the leading organization working on sub-national and regional capacity building programs in the extractive industries. RWI plans to expand that leadership with a possible francophone capacity building hub in coming years to work with civil society and other partners to serve French-speaking African transparency activists and government officials. The workshop provided a first opportunity for consultation on the hub and participants provided feedback.

The francophone coalition discussed their progress towards Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) validation. While political conditions across francophone Africa have worsened over the last two years—with violations of the civil rights of transparency activists and journalists in Guinea, Madagascar, Niger and Gabon, to name a few—EITI candidate countries have nonetheless continued progress towards validation, with the exceptions of Guinea, which voluntarily suspended its candidate status, and Madagascar, which applied for an extension. All coalitions are pushing for validation and fear that failure to complete the validation process would undermine the space created by the EITI. The workshop revealed a need for a clearer understanding of continuing work on the initiative after validation.

Liberia's recent landmark EITI law was discussed in detail as a positive example of available measures to institutionalize EITI and compel government and companies to act transparently through legal means. RWI's publication, EITI: Beyond the Basics, was also recommended for its additional information on various post-validation initiatives.

"So far the PWYP coalition has been massing their efforts on the effective implementation of EITI. While they would like to continue, it was necessary to present other relevant issues along the value chain where they can advocate and carry on other initiatives for transparency and governance," said Tsague. "The expected outcome is that when participants return home, they should be able to extend their priorities based on the opportunities in their countries."

Participants had the chance to make several in-person visits to Foxtrot International, a French extractive company, exploiting gas and some oil, that is part of Cote d'Ivoire’s EITI multi-stakeholder group.

Foxtrot’s presentation of their activities was limited to general information, but during the personal tour, General Director Christian Sage became contentious when participants asked questions about the financial figures of their activities. He said they are transparent and support the EITI, and he referred to the Cote d'Ivoire report for financial detail information. On the issue of contract transparency, he said it is not Foxtrot's responsibility to publish the contract, and that civil society should make such demands to the government instead.

The dialogue between workshop participants and Foxtrot staff continued over the course of multiple visits and ultimately proved very constructive. Among topics of discussion, participants used the example of a population opposed to pipeline construction as an argument in favor of contract transparency, arguing that if the social interests of the people aren't taken into consideration, there can be a risk of disruption to company activities. As a result, the Director promised to publish information about their social projects in producing regions on Foxtrot’s website.

PWYP Africa Coordinator Marie-Ange Kalenga said that some of the most interesting aspects of the workshop were participants' information and experience sharing on coalition governance and campaigners' protection; gaining a better understanding of current challenges with regards to capacity and the restricted transparency environment; and conducting group work on contract and budget transparency.

"Participants enjoyed group discussions and being able to share their country experiences with others despite their various levels of advancement and expertise," said Kalenga.

With a number of shared challenges across the francophone countries, including a "democracy deficit"; a closed political space that prevents advocacy work;
competition among civil society organizations for scarce resources; and a lack of expertise and political, moral and technical support from francophone countries in the Northern hemisphere, Kalenga said that that the participants discussed a "francophone action plan," that would encourage work at the regional and sub-regional level.

"Francophone coalitions agreed that capacity building on budget transparency is crucial," said Kalenga. "Freedom of information and the ECOWAS mining code also stood out as very important areas of focus for regional advocacy. Protection remains of paramount importance." Specific next steps included holding a 2010 sub-regional training in Chad; a strategy meeting on freedom of information in Gabon; and work from advocates in the DRC to explore ways in which the coalition can quickly set up a monitoring committee on protection issues.

In a closing statement the conference participants highlighted the following priorities: understanding the importance of transparency and good governance at various stages of the extractive industries value chain; sharing experiences and best practices with a view to greater synergy; highlighting the inseparable link between economic governance and democratic governance; and developing a strategy for greater protection of civil society activists in their role as watchdogs.

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