Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

who gets the money? 65central budget. On the one hand, a fund in a nontransparent systemcould facilitate the plundering of resource revenues. On the other hand,the spotlight provided by Caspian Revenue Watch could make it moredifficult for this to take place. In general, however, it probably will bedifficult to create an island of transparency in a system that lacks transparencyoverall. For this reason, Caspian Revenue Watch may wish toconsider expanding its agenda to include the transparency of resourcerevenues in general, particularly through the central budget.To sum up, the potential strong and weak points of Caspian RevenueWatch are as follows:• The advocacy approach may help to raise awareness of transparencyissues.• A strong civil society “spotlight” on the funds could make themmore difficult to plunder.• If the existence of funds in nontransparent systems can actuallyincrease transparency problems, Caspian Revenue Watch’s advocacy ofsuch funds may be problematic.• Caspian Revenue Watch focuses on funds rather than the nationalbudget.Initiatives Relevant for Company ReportingIn this section, we consider initiatives and instruments aimed at promotingcompany disclosure of the payments they make to host countries.OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The OECDGuidelines for Multinational Enterprises are nonbinding recommendationsthat governments address to all companies based or operatingin their jurisdictions. The guidelines form part of the OECD Declarationon International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, whichhas been agreed to by 33 OECD governments and several non-OECDgovernments (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Slovakia). Since their introductionin 1976, the guidelines have been updated several times,most recently in 2000 (OECD 2000). They take the form of recommendationsdivided into the following topics: disclosure, employmentand industrial relations, environment, efforts to combat bribery, consumerinterests, science and technology, competition, and taxation.The consultation process used to develop and revise the guidelines hasbeen relatively open and includes input from several permanent advisorybodies that coordinate the positions of interested business andcivil society groups.What differentiates the OECD guidelines from other recent initiativesis that they have been adopted by governments, not just