Social accountability in the extractive industry (EI) is particularly relevant to Indonesia, Mongolia, and the Philippines. It is a fragile area in governance since it is among the high-revenue generating industries in which efforts to track revenues have begun but citizen monitoring has not yet taken root. There is a clear need for corporations, citizens, and government to work together to integrate SAc into the EI value chain.
Oil, gas, and mining companies often make direct payments to governments in the form of royalties, bonuses, and various types of taxes. Usually, citizens have little or no access to information about payments because resource contracts are protected by confidentiality clauses. The absence of public awareness or participation in government processes related to revenue collection and distribution paves the way to corruption and mismanagement of public finances.
The more common SAc approaches in the extractives industry in the EAP region include:
- citizen monitoring
- citizen’s involvement in public commissions and hearings
- citizen advisory boards and oversight committees
- participatory public policy-making, and
- public education about legal rights.
Participatory budgeting and public expenditure tracking have yet to be meaningfully carried out.
ANSA-EAP has completed a study on ‘Mainstreaming Social Accountability in the Oil, Gas, and Mining Industries of Selected East Asia-Pacific Countries’. The study examines the concept of social accountability as it applies to environmental management in extractive industries’specifically oil, gas, and mining’in five countries of the East Asia Pacific (EAP) region. These countries include Cambodia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea.
To mainstream the SAc approach in the extractive industry sector, ANSA-EAP’s study recommends a research strategy that will empower civil society organizations to advance social accountability concerns with respect to the sector. Further research is needed in’
Strengthening regulatory frameworks, policies, and governance systems;
Building capacity for environmental monitoring and compliance assessment;
Encouraging community health risk assessment tools and approaches;
Enabling Corporate Social Responsibility and environment, social, governance approaches; and,
Addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation.
In May 2010, ANSA-EAP partnered with the Marinduque Council for Environmental Concerns to organize ‘Mainstreaming Social Accountability in the Extractive Industry: An Experts Meeting’ in Antipolo City, the Philippines. The activity aimed to build a consensus among participants from Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Timor Leste, and the Philippines on how to advance the agenda of SAc in the extractive industry.