Opinion
Focusing nearer home
2016-07-26
N. Ariuntuya
As part of the GIZ’s Integrated Mineral Resources Initiative program, MMJ journalists have for some time now been working on preparing a simplified version of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) reports on four selected aimags, to make them more interesting and easier of access. Last year we completed work on the 2013 reports for Bayankhongor and Selenge aimags, and so far this year we are finished with the 2014 reports on Bayankhongor, Uvurkhangai, Uvs and Selenge aimags. A feature of this year’s work has been the adoption of new methods and a revised format.
The goal of the EITI is improved governance, and responsible and transparent mining operations. Its standards have been adopted by more than 50 countries, raising stakeholders’ faith and hope that EITI will make for positive changes. Mongolia joined the Initiative 10 years ago and has been preparing reports for 9 years now.
The reports are comprehensive, exhaustive and rich in content. Unfortunately, they have proved to be too comprehensive, too exhaustive and too rich. The overwhelming amount of data collected and presented make them heavy reading and keep most targeted readers away. Some time ago it was realized they had to be made easier reading if their purpose were not to be defeated.
With the kernel hidden under layers and layers of frighteningly elaborate figures and daunting data, the EITI reports have been considerably underutilised. They have not met the actual demand for information, thus making less progress towards transparency than expected. Ordinary citizens, especially local citizens, have not been able to learn much from the whole exercise, undertaken with so much serious care.
There is also doubt if implementation of the EITI has really led to the hoped for improvement in the sector’s governance, which was seen as ultimately leading to reducing both poverty and corruption. Have the EITI report been a tool to reform governance of the industry and if not, why not? Even mining companies started to wonder if their reporting for the past 9 years has been of any use to Mongolian society at large. Indeed, the number of reporting companies showed a drop in 2014.
For EITI, such negative self-appraisal was not new. Other countries, too, faced a failure in purposefully analyzing the contents of reports. Several, if not all or most, countries implementing the Initiative have felt that reports have not been analysed properly or judiciously, thus failing to suggest what has to be done and how, if things have to be changed for the better.
Given the general feeling that the EITI reports in Mongolia were not making more information available, it was decided to take what might be called a ‘micro’ approach. Stress would be given to what the EITI report said about the activities of individual extracting companies in an aimag, including what impact these had on the local citizens’ livelihood and what role they played in the development of the aimag where it made its money. Local citizens would also relate more intensely to accounts in the report of what all the extraction work was bringing to them. Interest and involvement would grow if the focus was on areas near home. Once local curiosity was satisfied, it could be time to move on to the wider arena of the nation.
We at the Mongolian Mining Journal are happy that for the second successive year we have contributed to these revised objectives by working hard and carefully to prepare simplified and aimag-based versions of the report to make them attractive to citizens in the respective aimags. S.Bold-Erdene and B.Tugsbilegt are the two who study the reports received from the mining companies operating in Bayankhongor, Uvurkhangai, Selenge, and Uvs and then ably and skilfully extract data and other details that would attract local readers, and which they then put in the briefer report, more simply written. Feedback from local readers has been that small is beautiful.
This issue of the Mongolian Mining Journal gives full information on the mining revenue data for all 21 aimags along with the EITI report prepared for Selenge aimag.
It also contains information on the sale of 49% of the Erdenet Mining Corporation by the Russians to a Mongolian company, which promises to become a story in the coming days.
There are also articles on foreign investment trends after the election, and on the mining-related goals that find a place in the action plan of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party.
Enjoy your reading.