The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international strategic alliance formed by governments, extractive companies and civil society organizations from 49 countries, to bring transparency to the industries that profit from the extraction of our natural resources like oil, gas and mining.
Peru has been part of this initiative for 10 years, and in February of 2016 it will host the Seventh Annual EITI International Conference. The conference expects to bring together representatives from governments, companies and civil society networks from around the world involved in the EITI. The aim of the event is to reaffirm the EITI standard (which requires that countries disclose in a disaggregated manner all payments made by companies to governments and how governments use these funds), discuss new perspectives of EITI, and elect new representatives of the three sectors for the EITI Global Council.
We are now in a new political and economic context: falling prices and demand and plunging investments; deepening lack of transparency; negative effects of extractive industries without adequate safeguards; infringements of rights and risks of weakening of social and environmental procedures and standards.
In response, we the organizations of civil society, subscribe the present proclamation declaring that:
- The extractive industries exploit natural resources that are property of the nation. Present day decision makers should prevent the disappearance of such natural resources and preserve their productivity, in order to benefit not only the current generation of citizens, but also the future ones.
- Extractive activities produce substantial revenue for the States and that’s why Governments are aggressively encouraging these investments through policies that relax social and environmental standards and procedures. However, this indiscriminate promotion of investments has produced negative economic impacts, environmental damage, job insecurity, criminalization of protest, and social conflicts with subsequent deaths and injuries that we regret and we fear can get even worse.
- These negative impacts can be much worse now that the cycle of high demand and prices for our natural resources is over, as our Governments -in an effort to continue to attract extractive investments- are lowering taxes, weakening social and environmental standards, regulations, and institutions, and questioning the territorial and prior consultation rights of indigenous peoples.
- The citizens of Peru have right to require maximum possible transparency and access to information in the extractive industries. And also to demand that extractive activities are developed in areas deemed appropriate for such activities, respecting the environment, workers ‘ rights, the and rights of indigenous peoples and local communities that live in the resource-rich territories.
- The EITI initiative is an important opportunity to promote broader transparency and accountability in the extractive industries and the construction of good natural resources governance towards a new model of economic and social development.
- EITI can only exist on the basis of autonomous and representative participation of civil society, without limitations of any kind to its independence and its ability to propose new initiatives to enrich the national and international process.
- From this perspective, we recognize the historic role played by the Publish What You Pay coalition to promote globally the mobilization and organization of the civil society to claim the maximum transparency in the extractive sector. We also recognize the role that PWYP has played and is currently playing in the impartial selection of representatives of civil society to the new the EITI International Board.
- We also highlight and express our agreement with the impulse that PWYP and its regional networks – as the Latin American Civil Society Network on the Extractive Industries (RLIE)- are giving to the expansion of the EITI agenda to include new fiscal issues (such as transfer pricing, the property of the intermediary companies, and production costs), as well as the social and environmental dimensions of the extractive activities.
Transparency, access to information, adequate environmental management, citizen participation, respect for the right of indigenous peoples, accountability and international commitments in the field of extractive industries, are all essential to sustain extractive activities on the basis of the respect for human rights, decent work, environmental sustainability and the validity of the right to consultation and consent of indigenous and local peoples in general.
Lima, February 22, 2016.
Signatories:
- Alternativa – Centro de Investigación Social y Educación Popular
- Amazónicos por la Amazonía (AMPA)
- Asociación Arariwa
- Asociación Civil Centro de Cultura Popular Labor
- Asociación Civil Universidad Coherente
- Asociación Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras
- Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana (AIDESEP)
- Asociación Nacional de Centros (ANC)
- Asociación para la Conservación de la Cuenca Amazónica (ACCA)
- Asociación para la Investigación y Desarrollo Integral (AIDER)
- Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos (APRODEH)
- Cáritas del Perú
- Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica (CAAAP)
- Centro Bartolomé de Las Casas (CBC)
- Centro de Conservación, Investigación y Manejo de Áreas Naturales (CIMA)
- Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú (CHIRAPAQ)
- Centro de Educación, Organización y Promoción del Desarrollo (CEOP) Ilo
- Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Regional (CEDER)
- Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Participación (CEDEP)
- Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo (DESCO)
- Centro de investigación y promoción del campesinado (CIPCA) Piura
- Centro Ecuménico de Promoción y Acción Social (CEDEPAS) Cajamarca
- Centro Ecuménico de Promoción y Acción Social (CEDEPAS) Norte
- Centro para el Desarrollo del Indígena Amazónico (CEDIA)
- Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (CEPES)
- Ciudadanos al Día (CAD)
- Colegio Economistas Loreto
- Comisión de Justicia Social de la Diócesis de Chimbote
- Confederación Campesina del Perú (CCP)
- Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP)
- Confederación Nacional Agraria (CNA)
- Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Organizadas por la Vida y el Desarrollo Integral (CONAMOVIDI)
- Consejo de Coordinación Local Provincial (CCLP)
- Consejo de la Prensa Peruana (CPP)
- Consejo Machiguenga del Río Urubamba (COMARU)
- CONVEAGRO – Convención Nacional del Agro Peruano
- CooperAcción – Acción Solidaria para el Desarrollo
- Cooperativa Norandino
- Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH)
- Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR)
- DESCOSUR
- Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)
- EarthRights International (ERI)
- Federación Enfermedades Peruanas (FEPER)
- Foro Ecológico del Perú
- FOROSALUD – Foro de la Sociedad Civil en Salud
- Fundación Ecuménica para el Desarrollo y La Paz (FEDEPAZ)
- Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana (GPC)
- Instituto de Defensa Legal del Ambiente y el Desarrollo Sostenible (IDLADS)
- Instituto del Bien Común (IBC)
- IPSA – Instituto de Promoción Social Amazónica (La Voz de la Selva)
- Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI)
- Organización Nacional de Mujeres Indígenas Andinas y Amazónicas del Perú (ONAMIAP)
- Organización Regional Aidesep Ucayali (ORAU)
- Organización Regional de los Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente ORPIO-Loreto
- OXFAM en Perú
- Paz y Esperanza
- Programa Laboral de Desarrollo (PLADES)
- Red de Vigilancia del Presupuesto Participativo de Cajamarca
- RED MUQUI PERÚ
- Red Peruana por una Globalización con Equidad (RedGE)
- Salud Preventiva Andina
- Servicios en Comunicación Intercultural (Servindi)
- Suma Ciudadana
Access the Spanish version here.