Increasing beneficial ownership data analysis in the extractive sector

Introduction

The Opening Extractives programme

Oil, gas, and mining projects are a significant source of revenue for resource-rich countries and their citizens, but corruption and poor governance can divert this revenue away from delivering the services and governance every citizen deserves. The abuse of anonymous companies remains the getaway vehicle for the corrupt, and beneficial ownership transparency is the most effective way to close this channel.

The Opening Extractives (OE) Programme is an ambitious global programme jointly implemented by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Open Ownership (OO), with the aim to transform the availability and use of beneficial ownership data for effective governance in the extractive sector. It combines political and technical engagement, to support countries implementing beneficial ownership reforms and to enable the use of the data by governments, civil society and companies. It is premised on the understanding that beneficial ownership data alone does not deliver these outcomes, but without it, the chances of success fall significantly.

Beneficial ownership transparency

A beneficial owner is defined as the natural person that can be found at the end of an ownership chain. Often there is just a single link between a beneficial owner and a company, but sometimes it can include long and complex ownership chains of multiple legal entities.

Beneficial ownership transparency, then, is key to fighting corruption globally and preventing illicit financial flows in all sectors of an economy. This is particularly true for the oil, gas, and mining industries, where citizens of resource-rich countries have often been left paying the bill when shell companies have been misused. By knowing who ultimately owns or controls an extractive company, governments can increase companies’ accountability, and citizens can use this information to monitor and identify red flags, advocate for effective resource management and push for accountability.

The OE programme aims to build the capacity of government and local stakeholders to integrate, use, and analyse data in the public domain to improve accountability and governance in resource-rich countries. As part of that objective, the goal is to support the development of tailored and context-based projects that catalyse transformative change towards increased beneficial ownership transparency in the extractives sector.

We are looking for organisations, media centres or individuals to submit innovative projects to tackle opaque company ownership in the natural resources and extractives sector through public beneficial ownership data analysis and use. We want to support ideas that use available data in a particular context, or seek to investigate a particular case, company or individual.