Volume 1 Cedric - revised luca Final - RUIG-GIAN

early termination, or supporting the peace-building process when that stage arrives. SeveralNGOs are active in this area, among them International Alert, the Prince of WalesInternational Business Leaders’ Forum (IBLF), CDA Collaborative Learning Projects,Saferworld, and Forum on Early Warning and Early Response (FEWER). 37Some of the more notable of the specific initiatives are the following:• The Kimberley Process:This is “a joint government, international diamond industry and civil society initiative tostem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds that are used by rebel movementsto finance wars against legitimate governments. The trade in these illicit stones hascontributed to devastating conflicts in countries such as Angola, the DemocraticRepublic of Congo and Sierra Leone. The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is aninnovative, voluntary system that imposes extensive requirements on Participants tocertify that shipments of rough diamonds are free from conflict diamonds. TheKimberley Process is composed of 43 Participants, including the European Community.Kimberley Process Participants account for approximately 99.8 per cent of the globalproduction of rough diamonds.” 38• The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) 39 and related activities.The EITI was started by the British government in 2002. It followed on earlier NGOcampaigns called Global Witness (supported by George Soros and the Open SocietyInstitute) and the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign. The idea of all of theseschemes is to provide a mechanism for oil and mining companies to make publicinformation on the payments they make to host governments, as a necessary first stepto make the governments accountable for what they do with the money. It has beenendorsed by a large number of oil companies, governments, intergovernmentalorganizations and NGOs. The World Bank and IMF are collaborating in itsapplication, which gives countries in need of their support a powerful incentive tocollaborate. Azerbaijan, which is at the end of an oil pipeline financed by the WorldBank, and Nigeria, as a condition of writing down its sovereign debt, are reported tohave become much less opaque in the auditing of their accounts. 40 Given the range andapparent seriousness of its participants and the scale of resources involved, thisinitiative may have a greater potential than most others to bring about a majorimprovement in the contribution made by private enterprises in the natural resourcessectors to the national development of the countries where they have productionactivities.• Business Partners for Development Natural Resources ClusterThis initiative, part of the World Bank’s Business Partners for Developmentprogramme, was operative from 1998 to 2002; it aimed at promoting the developmentof local business in countries in which oil and ore production take place. Participantsincluded firms in the oil, gas and mining industries, together with interestedgovernments, NGOs and the World Bank. Case studies, training materials, goodpractice guidance notes and other documents related to the three-way partnerships thatwere formed to carry out focus projects are available through the web site. 4137 Relevant websites include http://www.csrforum.org, a joint undertaking of the IBLF and International Alert;http://www.conflictsensitivity.org, a joint programme of Saferworld, FEWER, and International Alert with thecooperation of several African and Asian NGOs, and http://www.cdainc.com, where one can find a conflict impactassessment tool called “do no harm” analysis. Useful publications include Karen Ballentine and Virginia Haufler,Enabling Economies of Peace: Public Policy for Conflict-Sensitive Business, New York: UN Global Compact, 2005. Itincludes a table giving a summary overview of relevant voluntary initiatives and regulatory instruments.38 Text taken from the web site http://www.kimberleyprocess.com.39 http://www.eitransparency.org.40 Alan Beattie, “Oil price rise presents opportunities for corruption”, Financial Times, 26 August 2005.41 http://www.bpd-naturalresources.org. The experiences are described in M. Warner and R. Sullivan, eds., PuttingPartnerships to Work: Strategic Alliances for Development between Government, the Private Sector and CivilSociety, London, Greenleaf Publishing, 2004.27