Between October 2025 and February 2026, civil society organisations from 49 countries and more than 150 participants gathered across four EITI regions to build technical capacity, strengthen regional coordination, and develop advocacy tools needed to implement the 2023 EITI Standard and to hold governments and companies accountable for the disclosures it requires.
This article highlights the achievements and ongoing collaboration between Transparency International’s Accountable Mining Programme (Transparency International AMP) and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), supported by funding from the Extractives Global Programmatic Support (EGPS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund managed by the World Bank, under the project: Support for Citizen Engagement for Accountability and Transparency in the Extractive Sector. The four priority areas of this project are outlined below, and all were woven into the design of each regional meeting dependent on contexts and needs.
Civic space as the connective thread during the events and the role of the EITI Requirement 1.3: Civil Society Engagement
One requirement underpinned every event across all four regions: EITI Requirement 1.3 on civil society engagement. The ability of civil society to participate meaningfully in EITI Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) processes, access extractive sector disclosures, and advocate without reprisal is not a precondition for EITI implementation; it is a requirement of the Standard itself. Across Asia-Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa, participants documented civic space conditions shaping EITI implementation in their countries and agreed on concrete mechanisms, including the EITI Civil Society Protocol, validation process submissions, and Board-level advocacy, to protect and strengthen civil society participation within EITI governance structures.
East Asia and Pacific (EAP)
The Asia-Pacific region produces a significant share of the world’s transition minerals, including nickel, cobalt, and copper. Communities in mineral-producing areas in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and the Philippines are directly affected by the governance conditions under which extraction proceeds.
The Manila convening examined how EITI Requirement 1.3 can be used to document and escalate civic space threats facing land defenders and community advocates; how the 2023 EITI Standard’s requirements on contract transparency and beneficial ownership apply to transition mineral supply chains; and how the fast-tracking of extraction approvals ahead of adequate regulatory frameworks creates accountability gaps that civil society can challenge through MSG processes and EITI validation.
Key Outcomes:
- Asia-Pacific CSO Regional Solidarity Declaration, a unified civil society position on just energy transition, structured around four core themes
- Formal launch of the Asia-Pacific Transition Minerals Accountability (AP-TMA) Working Group as the region’s permanent coordination mechanism for transition mineral governance
- Coordinated 2026 advocacy calendar mapping civil society engagement across EITI, ASEAN, and climate forums, including COP31 and the EITI Global Conference.
Manila, Philippines
Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Australia and China
53 participants, 25 women and 28 men
21–23 October 2025
Europe and Central Asia (ECA)
The Istanbul workshop brought together EITI civil society coalitions from twelve countries across Europe, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. Country presentations gave each delegation five minutes to map the status of civic space, EITI Standard implementation, anti-corruption, and the energy transition in their country, thereby producing a verified regional baseline on which the action-planning work was built.
Participants mapped what the fossil fuel phase-out means for revenue stability in resource-dependent economies, where energy transition decisions are being made outside the Multi-Stakeholder Group processes the 2023 EITI Standard requires, and how the Standard’s new provisions on energy transition policy disclosure can be applied as a civil society accountability tool.
Key Outcomes:
- National and regional EITI-aligned action plans for all 12 country delegations, covering all four EGPS priority areas
- Establishment of the Energy Transition Working Group under Resource Justice Network coordination, with the first online meeting held in December 2025
- Collective commitment to advance joint advocacy for the EITI Civil Society Protocol at the EITI Board level
- Common communiqué published on the Resource Justice Network website; subnational MSG model endorsed across both sub-regions.
Istabul, Türkiye
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Norway, Tajikistan, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom
23 participants: 16 women and 7 men
24–26 November 2025
Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)
The Quito event was structured over two days with deliberately different audience compositions. Day One was a civil society-only workshop in which MSG civil society representatives from across the region documented the civic space conditions shaping their EITI work, including legislative restrictions, surveillance, and the persecution of environmental defenders in Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Colombia.
Day Two comprised a Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue and a closed working session for CSO MSG representatives and EITI Civil Society Board members. The Mining Awards Corruption Risk Assessment (MACRA) tool was applied in a hands-on group exercise.
The Escazú Agreement, the regional treaty on access to information, public participation, and protection of environmental defenders, was examined as a legal instrument that civil society in LAC can invoke alongside EITI Requirement 1.3.
Key Outcomes:
- Structured civil society work plan with six thematic priorities (energy transition monitoring, environmental and social transparency, subnational EITI implementation, end beneficiaries of extractive revenues, fiscal traceability, and regional network strengthening), mapped to concrete common actions
- Civil society follow-up package agreed for the 65th EITI Board meeting, consolidating the LAC region’s collective positions
- Collective proposal to formalise the LAC Civil Society Group as a permanent regional coordination platform for extractive sector transparency
- Escazú Agreement established as a complementary legal instrument reinforcing EITI Requirement 1.3 in LAC implementing countries.
Quito, Peru
Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, México, Perú, República Dominicana, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago
98 participants, 55 women and 43 men
10–11 February 2026
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
The Lusaka event was the fourth and final in the series and the most linguistically diverse, convening civil society MSG representatives from 22 EITI-implementing countries across Anglophone, Francophone, and Lusophone Africa, with French and Portuguese interpretation throughout. Sub-regional breakout sessions grouped participants by language to enable context-specific peer discussion on MSG governance, civic space constraints, and EITI implementation challenges.
Three dedicated training workshops applied the Mining Awards Corruption Risk Assessment (MACRA) tool, NRGI’s gender advocacy framework using gender-disaggregated EITI disclosure data, and NRGI’s Emissions Monitoring and Accountability Tool (EMAT) through group exercises. A dedicated session on domestic resource mobilisation drew on EITI’s Resources and Revenues publication, which found that 17 implementing countries are spending more on debt servicing and interest payments than on social sectors, and presented civil society case studies from Ghana, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and Côte d’Ivoire on using EITI sub-national transfer disclosures and revenue data to challenge that pattern.
Key Outcomes:
- 100% of post-event respondents affirmed they felt empowered to address EITI compliance gaps in their national contexts
- Civil society self-governance commitment: terms of reference governing how civil society organises within EITI and MSG processes, with gender and social inclusion of MSG representatives as a self-imposed accountability standard
- Time-bound gender advocacy statements developed using gender-disaggregated EITI disclosure data, peer-reviewed across 22 country delegations
- World Bank committed to incorporating event findings into the citizen engagement strategy for the next phase of EGPS
Lusaka, Zambia
Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia
57 participants: 21 women, 36 men
25–26 February 2026
Lessons from the Four Regions
Civil society organisations from 49 countries. Four different regions. Four distinct political and governance contexts. Yet when the four events are read together, the same themes emerge with striking consistency.
- Civil society is building the coordination infrastructure that the EITI requires
The effectiveness of the 2023 EITI Standard depends on organised, technically capable civil society engagement in MSG processes. The four events produced the regional working groups, civil society coalitions, and coordination mechanisms that enable sustained engagement: the AP-TMA Working Group (EAP), the Energy Transition Working Group (ECA), the LAC Civil Society Group proposal (LAC), and MSG self-governance commitments (SSA).
- The 2023 EITI Standard is an accountability instrument, not just a reporting framework
Participants across all four regions applied the Standard’s requirements, including Requirement 1.3 on Civil society engagement, Requirement 2.5 on beneficial ownership, energy transition and GHG disclosure provisions, and gender-responsive reporting requirements, as practical tools for civil society monitoring and advocacy. The Standard’s value to civil society is directly proportional to how effectively its requirements are linked to national governance priorities.
- The energy transition is creating new governance risks
Fast-tracked licensing of transition mineral projects, inadequate contract transparency in critical mineral supply chains, the exclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities from energy transition planning, and the absence of project-level GHG disclosures were documented across all four regions. The 2023 Standard’s requirements on energy transition policy disclosure, beneficial ownership, and contract transparency provide the framework. Applying them requires sustained civil society capacity and regional coordination.
Civic space protection is a requirement of EITI implementation
EITI Requirement 1.3 requires implementing countries to ensure that civil society can participate fully in MSG processes and EITI-related advocacy without restriction. Where civic space is constrained by legislative restrictions, administrative obstruction, or direct intimidation, EITI implementation is compromised. All four events produced concrete commitments to use the EITI civic space mechanisms: the Civil Society Protocol, the validation process, and Board-level advocacy on Requirement 1.3.
For more information please get in touch: mining@transparency.org
With thanks to our key collaborators in each region:
Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo (Transparency International Ecuador)
Transparency International Zambia