Recommendations for further development of the Initiative
“In Ländern mit reichen Bodenschätzen sind die Leute oft sehr arm. Welche Massnahmen sind geeignet, die Bevölkerung stärker am Nutzen von Rohstoffen zu beteiligen? Ist die EITI (Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative) ein sinnvoller und ausreichender Ansatz, um die negativen Auswirkungen der Ausbeutung von Rohstoffen zu mildern?”
From a Western European perspective, the occurrence of natural resources – especially the commodities oil, gas and minerals – is often regarded as great luck and a stimulus, not only for the national economy but also for the population’s wealth and living standard in general. But are natural resources indeed nothing but a blessing? Is such a national treasury genuinely to the benefit of every single citizen? As has been observed for decades, the extraction itself brings several negative consequences, along with side effects. But further aggravating the problem is this: The immense revenues of the commodity selling do nothing to improve poverty in a well-directed manner in those developing countries. Neither governments nor international organisations nor NGOs succeeded in truly diminishing poverty in many resource-rich developing countries, although one of the keys to a more prosperous life lies under their feet, in their own soil.