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	A Rotten Deal in Nigeria and the Global Movement for Transparency by Global Witness, Open Society Foundation   Q&A: A Rotten Deal in Nigeria and the Global Movement for Transparency. (Open Society Foundation)   Global Witness works to expose corruption and promote transparency in the mining, logging, oil, and gas sectors, so that the true owners of a nation’s natural resources—its citizens—benefit fairly from their use.   Wedad Bseiso of the Fiscal Governance Program spoke with Global Witness’s Rachel Owens about their reporting on Nigeria, including the scandal surrounding the sale of one of Africa’s most valuable oil blocks, known as OPL 245.   Global Witness has reported extensively on the OPL case in Nigeria. Why is this story so important?   The OPL case is one of the worst corruption scandals in the oil, gas, and mining sector. It shows the problem with the lack of transparency around deals between government officials and powerful multinational companies, in this case Shell and Eni. The OPL sale meant $1.1 billion was taken from Nigerian citizens and the Nigerian economy. That’s more than Nigeria’s entire 2016 health care budget.   The real-life impact of these corrupt deals is that people do not benefit from these revenues. They don’t, for example, help fund public services such as education, health care, and infrastructure. If companies do not feel consequences for this kind of corruption, they will not change their behavior—and these resource-rich countries will continue to suffer huge amounts of poverty.   It’s been six years since you broke the OPL story. What influence has the coverage had on Nigeria in the time since?   Shell and Eni have been put under a huge amount of pressure to explain to shareholders, investors, and the public why they got involved in this corrupt deal. Our April 2017 report Shell Knew actually led to Shell changing their position on this case. Previously, they said they had not done anything wrong; now they admit that they did know that some of the money would go to a convicted money launderer and a former oil minister.   Five different countries have begun investigations into whether these companies broke the law. Shell and Eni are both facing trial in Italy. Last year, the Dutch authorities raided the head office of Shell in the Netherlands. An environment is being created in which the risks of corrupt dealing is much higher because shareholders, investors, the public, and the media are asking questions.   How can activists and independent oversight actors use Global Witness’s work to challenge corruption?   The great thing about transparency is that once you put information out in the public, it can be used in all kinds of ways. NGOs in Nigeria have used the information to question the Nigerian government officials who were involved in this deal. Members of the Nigerian House of Representatives have also made similar inquiries.   Using the data can be as simple as asking a company to explain why they haven’t paid any taxes on a particular project, which can create dialogue between citizens, companies, and governments. Investors are also very interested in this information, because their financial risk is high.   There are also efforts to track the money. A huge amount of cash and assets were distributed as bribes to various government officials, and some of that wealth now is in bank accounts in Europe and the United States.   About $85 million is frozen in accounts in the United Kingdom, and the Nigerian government is trying to get some of that money back. When President Buhari came to London last year, he pointed out that Western governments have an important role to play in ensuring that stolen assets are recovered.   Nigeria was one of the first members to join the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which requires oil, mining, and gas companies to report payments they make to governments. Has EITI been effective in exposing corruption and improving accountability?   From my perspective, the most important benefit of EITI is that it has led to normative change; transparency in the extractives sector is now commonplace. This is a huge shift from 10 years ago. Also, the EITI is a specific kind of transparency initiative in which civil society sits at the table with companies and governments, and then they negotiate what information will be made public and which rules will govern the extraction of natural resources.   Civil society must be involved because without that participation, you could end up having the information but not the accountability. Civil society tends to be the only actor that wants real accountability and change, so it’s crucial to the functioning of EITI.   Global Witness and our partners have been campaigning for a long time on the issue of “beneficial ownership,” because when we investigated corrupt deals, we found that even when we could see the payments, we could not see who owned the companies which received them.   Many are set up as shell companies to hide the ownership of a government official or to enable money laundering. So we campaigned for the EITI to require oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose their beneficial owners. The EITI International board agreed last year, and companies in all 51 EITI countries will need to disclose that information by 2020.   What other measures can the international community take to stop money laundering through shell companies?   Most jurisdictions have laws against money laundering, but there are huge loopholes. We are working to push the European Union to require public disclosure and full public registries of the real owners of companies. The United Kingdom has this type of register, but the rest of Europe is lagging.   We also believe that trusts should disclose their beneficial owners, because money is often diverted to trusts set up by family members. The European Union and the United States also have transparency legislation. All European oil, gas, and mining companies started to disclose their payments to governments last year, and we have started to analyze that information.   Unfortunately, the United States recently reversed the implementation of its transparency legislation, which means that U.S. companies like Exxon and Chevron no longer need to disclose the same information. This is a huge step backward, and we are exploring options to challenge it. Visit the related web page
	2017 Awardees for Social Entrepreneurship by Skoll Foundation, agencies   27 March 2017   The Skoll Foundation has announced its four recipients of the 2017 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.   The Skoll Awards highlight transformative leaders whose organizations disrupt the status quo, to drive sustainable large-scale change, and offer the opportunity to create even greater impact on the world.   “Social entrepreneurs share several important characteristics: concern for the vulnerable, optimism about our future, an ability to think and do, and importantly, an unfailing belief in solutions,” said Jeff Skoll, Founder and Chairman of the Skoll Foundation. “These four remarkable people give us great hope that a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable future can be within reach.”   “This year’s Awardees are social entrepreneurs who understand that human dignity depends on the security that comes from knowing fundamental needs are met: health, food, shelter, and safety,” said Sally Osberg, CEO of the Skoll Foundation. “Only when those needs are fulfilled can people achieve their full potential.”   Awardees’ organizations receive $1.25 million core support investments to scale their work and increase their impact. The social entrepreneurs also gain leverage through their participation in a global community of social innovators dedicated to solving some of the biggest global challenges of our time.   Kola Masha: Babban Gona   In Nigeria young people face a 50 percent unemployment rate. A revitalized agricultural sector that offers youth attractive prospects for a viable income is urgently needed. Babban Gona is an investor-owned social enterprise serving networks of smallholder farmers with a model created specifically to attract youth.   Members receive development and training, credit, agricultural inputs, marketing support, and other key services. Besides increasing each farmer’s yield and income to over 2 times the national average, the Babban Gona franchise works to demonstrate that the smallholder segment is a viable model for investment and to attract new capital to the sector.   Dr. Elizabeth Hausler: Build Change   More than nine in every ten natural disaster-related deaths occur in developing countries. Many of these occur in overcrowded and unsafe neighborhoods where housing is likely to collapse. With an emphasis on prevention, Build Change trains homeowners, local builders, engineers, and government officials to construct or retrofit disaster resistant houses and schools in emerging nations vulnerable to earthquakes and typhoons.   Build Change makes the work affordable by leveraging cost savings through standardized retrofitting designs, existing subsidy and incentive programs, and partnerships with local universities providing seismic engineering experts. It works with governments and development agencies to promote standards, building codes, and financial incentives for disaster-resilient construction.   Dr. Rajesh Panjabi: Last Mile Health   Last Mile Health partners with government to deploy, support, and manage networks of community health professionals and to integrate them into the public health system. With training in maternal and child health, family planning, treatment adherence, and surveillance of epidemics, together with mentoring from nurse supervisors, these community health workers deliver quality healthcare to remote communities.   In communities Last Mile Health serves, newborn mortality has decreased and the percentage of children treated for diarrhea, malaria, and pneumonia has increased. On the strength of this success, Last Mile Health is now supporting the Liberian Ministry of Health to implement the approach nationwide and coordinating with NGO partners.   Bradley Myles: Polaris   Human trafficking is a low-risk, high-profit criminal industry, enslaving more than 20 million people each year in forced labor and commercial sex and generating some $150 billion in profits. Polaris systematically disrupts human trafficking networks and restores freedom to survivors. Grounded in data gathered from victims’ experiences, Polaris directly supports victims, equips key stakeholders with data to address and prevent human trafficking, and intervenes in specific industries through targeted campaigns.   With experience and expertise from direct victim services such as hotlines and resource centers, to policy advocacy, Polaris provides a data backbone for the sector. This data enhances law enforcement access to tips and actionable information, identifies gaps in services and resources, and facilitates collaboration to support organizations and agencies across the United States and eventually, around the world.   http://bit.ly/2nWhoYg http://bit.ly/2o5pDTw http://bit.ly/2p3TxVT   The moment is now for land rights, by Chris Jochnick   The development community has experienced various ‘revolutions’ over the years – from microfinance to women’s rights, from the green revolution to sustainable development. Each of these awakenings has improved our understanding of the challenges we face. Each has transformed the development landscape, mostly for the better.   We now see the beginnings of another, long-overdue, revolution: this one focused on the fundamental role of land in sustainable development. Land has often been at the root of revolutions, but the coming land revolution is not about overthrowing old orders. It is based on the basic fact that much of the world has never gotten around to legally documenting land rights. According to the World Bank, only 10 percent of land in rural Africa and 30 percent of land globally is documented. This gap is the cause of widespread chaos and dysfunction around the world.   Ten factors push land to the top of the global agenda:   1. Livelihoods and food security   The majority of people living in poverty today depend on land for their survival, but lack secure rights to it. That insecurity creates a powerful disincentive to invest, undermining efforts to boost farmer productivity and leaving hundreds of millions of small farmers permanently on the brink of survival. By contrast, secure rights can boost productivity by 60 percent and more than double family income. The UN 2030 Agenda (the Sustainable Development Goals) includes land rights in its first two goals: covering poverty and hunger.   2. Sustainable Economic Growth   The so-called Asian Tigers offer a powerful reminder that securing land rights for small farmers is a fundamental pre-condition for strong and sustainable economic growth. A study of 33 countries found that stronger property rights correlated with a five percent increase in GDP growth. A global study of 108 countries found that stronger property rights correlated with an increased average annual growth of per capita income of 6 to 14 percentage points.   3. Women’s Empowerment   Today, more than half the world’s countries deny women the ability to own, inherit, or manage land by law or custom. These barriers condemn women to second class status and poverty, generation after generation. While sixty percent of working women in sub-Saharan Africa are in the agricultural sector, they often work without secure legal or customary rights, accessing land only through a male relative. If they are widowed or have an argument with their brother or father, they and their children are likely to be left homeless and landless.   There is arguably no single intervention as powerful as legally documenting, formalizing, and strengthening women’s land rights to transform a women’s status, voice, and economic prospects.   Accordingly, the UN Sustainable Development Goals include land rights in the 5th goal covering gender equality. Women Deliver launched a global campaign on women’s and girls’ empowerment and dozens of INGOs fully embrace land rights.   4. Conflict and Human rights   The human rights community has put land rights on the map as land grabbing and attendant violence have captured national and global headlines. Population growth feeds growing conflict around ever-scarcer land, climate change-induced desertification and flooding, and pressure in industrialized countries to find new sources of minerals, commodities and food in the Global South.   In emerging economies, an estimated 93 percent of concessions granted to investors for extractive activities are already occupied by communities, setting the stage for widespread expropriation and violence.   A study of civil conflicts since 1990 showed that land was at the root of the majority of them, and Global Witness declared 2015 the deadliest year for land defenders, with over three killed every week.   5. Governance and accountability   Land grabbing is one of the clearest symptom of governmental dysfunction. As Transparency International highlights, it thrives where corruption is high and rule of law is low. The vast tracts of land that remain undocumented and the billion plus people living under insecure regimes stand as one of the greatest challenges to strong institutions and rule of law.   6. Indigenous Peoples’ Rights   Indigenous peoples have fought to protect their territory for thousands of years. Today, an estimated 2.5 billion people depend on indigenous and community lands. These lands cover over 50 percent of the planet, but only one fifth of that land has been formally recognized as legally belonging to the indigenous and local communities that occupy it.   More than 500 organizations led by Oxfam, Rights Resources Initiative, and the International Land Coalition are actively campaigning to secure the collective land rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.   7. Conservation and Climate Change   Stronger land rights are one of the most effective tools we have to ward off deforestation and climate change. A growing body of evidence underscores that secure land rights for forest communities are the best defense to forest destruction. Likewise, for individual farmers, the lack of a long term outlook leads to slash and burn practices. Climate smart approaches to agriculture, including water and soil conservation, better seeds and fertilizer, and planting of trees will only thrive where farmers feel they have a secure stake in the land.   8. Humanitarian crises and response   Insecure land rights leave vulnerable people facing natural disasters with strong incentives to stay in place, fearing that by evacuating they will lose any claim to their land. Lack of clear land tenure following crises also makes rebuilding nearly impossible, in large part because of unclear land rights.   9. Smart urbanization   As urbanization rapidly increases across the global south, city planners are stymied by a lack of clear land tenure, leading to illegal and unplanned urban sprawl, massive slums (an estimated 60-80 percent of African city dwellers lack secure property rights), conflict and forced evictions.   The UN’s “New Urban Agenda” explicitly recognizes the importance of land rights, as does the seminal campaign to secure “land rights for all” launched by the world’s largest housing rights organization – Habitat for Humanity.   10. Peace, security and refugee flows   Struggles over land have spurred many of the most enduring and devastating wars and refugee flows of our times, including in Syria, Sudan, Rwanda, Colombia, and Myanmar.   Liberians fear their country is on the brink of civil war, yet again, and conflict over land is a driving factor.   For national governments, insecure land rights may present an existential threat, whereas for the international community they are crucial to securing an enduring peace and stemming the flow of refugees.   It’s clear then why the development community is rallying around land rights – for return on investment, it is tough to beat them. Stories of the importance of land rights and the many successful land interventions are daily fodder for mainstream and academic media.   The business community has its reasons too – land rights are critical to sustainable supply chains and secure investments. Governments are beginning to come around. In March, over a thousand land rights practitioners from civil society, business and governments gathered at the World Bank’s Annual Land and Poverty Conference.   Signs of a coming land revolution are everywhere, but much work remains, and it is vital that the international community and donors tackle land tenure as a priority. It’s fair to say that until small holder farmers, women, and marginalized communities have secure land rights, other well meaning interventions are destined to fail, like houses built on sand. Happily, tenure security can be tackled at scale with relatively simple and cost-effective approaches. The moment is now for land rights. http://bit.ly/2nN4VF3 Visit the related web page
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