International Board of EITI held its meeting

The representative from Eurasia region Gubad Ibadoglu participated at several meetings with governmental officials from Congo and Ivory Cost
The member of International Board of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI ), representative from Eurasia region Gubad Ibadoglu was sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC)by International Secretariat based in Oslo. G.Ibadoglu met with the deputy prime minister of DRC, including finance, extractive industries, planning ministers and the parties discussed perspectives and challenges related to the involvement of DRC in transparency initiatives of its extractive industries. Additionally, G.Ibadoglu met with speaker of Parliament, its deputies as well as head of permanent committee and its members. During this meeting, Transparency Initiative and good governance issues were debated. He also delivered speech at the conference organized by Secretariat of DRC EITI on October 14.
Currently, G.Ibadoglu is attending to the 25th session of international board held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. At this conference, he talked about the challenges faced by civil society, including numerous NGOs and media in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. G.Ibadoglu touched upon technical and political barriers in the field of information accession on oil contracts and disclosure of property ownership of companies involved in oil contracts. According to the new rules of EITI, the disclosure of property ownership of companies is of recommendation character; therefore, it was decided to solve this problem gradually in member countries to EITI.
According to the new rules of Board, the validation reports of Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Cameroon was reviewed. The last two countries were selected as full members, whereas Ukraine and Senegal were considered as candidate countries. Thus, the number of EITI member countries reached to 41 and 25 of them are full members, 16 members are candidate countries.
After the conference, the members of International Board met with Daniel Kablan Duncan, Prime Minister of Ivory Coast. Additionally, dinner reception has been hosted on behalf of the Prime Minister in honor of guests.
It was decided to organize the next meetings of EITI International Board in Cape Town on February and in Washington on June.
Economic Research Center Public Relations Department