The project proposal of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) on “Increasing Transparency in Extractive Industries” has qualified in the final round of the Making All Voices Count – Global Innovation Competition (MAVC-GIC). Out of around 370 applications from Asian and African countries, only 15 ideas made it in the final round of the grant competition.
The project proposal aims to build local capacity to use open data for transparency in extractive industries reports, and will create community-based multi-stakeholder groups for info-mediation and inclusive monitoring, reporting, and decision-making. Its objectives include increasing transparency and accountability through disclosing the amounts remitted to the government and the benefits they receive in return. More so, it looks into the creation of a local multi-stakeholder group (MSG) composed of representatives from the local government units and other sectors of the society. The MSG will undergo training and capacity-building activities in identifying a context-based info-mediating platform to be used in the planning, monitoring and reporting of projects funded by the shares of local government units the extractive industries.
The idea was conceptualized due to the Philippine Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (PH-EITI) 2014 industry report which showed that the amount remitted by companies versus what is received by local government units has a 4.7% discrepancy. Given the grant, ULAP seeks to provide policy support for the establishment of multi-stakeholder groups in different sub-national communities that shall be able to yield context-based information on extractive industries. Consolidating the information from different communities will give the local governments a greater picture of the local problem at hand. Increasing citizen participation shall also increase the clamor for the national and local government, and private companies in practicing the principles of transparency and accountability.
The GIC 2016 finals will be hosted in Accra, Ghana in what they call the Global Innovation Week. Representatives from ULAP, together with other finalists, will meet each other and undergo an intense mentorship programme, before making final presentations of the proposed ideas. The final winners shall be announced during the end of the Global Innovation Week.
To read more about the proposal, please click this link: Increasing transparency in extractive industries
To view the announcement of the top 15 entries, please click: GIC 2016 Finalists