Mongolia twelfth EITI Reconciliation report 2017

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (“EITI”) is a global standard for improving transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sectors. The Government of Mongolia announced the country’s adoption of EITI in 2006. In follow-up actions, a National EITI Council and a multi-stakeholder working group (MSWG), comprised of representatives of the government, mining companies, and civil society, were established to implement EITI.

Since adopting EITI, Mongolia has produced eleven EITI reports, and has appointed the consortium of Hart Group and Ulaanbaatar Audit as the Independent Administrator for the current (twelfth) report. The Principles and Requirements for EITI implementation were re-stated in the 2016 EITI Standard, which was formally launched at the EITI Global Conference in Lima 24-25 February 2016.

This 2016 EITI Standard encourages countries to make use of existing reporting systems for EITI data collection and make the results transparent at source. It requires that the identity of those that own and profit from extractive activities should now be disclosed: all countries must ensure that the companies that bid for, operate or invest in extractive projects declare who their beneficial owners are. The requirement will take effect as of 1 January 2020.

The EITI’s quality assurance mechanism, Validation, which checks whether countries are adhering to the EITI Requirements, has also been refined in the 2016 EITI Standard. Although the bar for achieving compliance has not changed, the assessment will to a greater extent take into account the diversity in implementing country membership, recognise efforts to go beyond the minimum requirements and incentivise continuous improvements in implementation. On 13 February 2018, the EITI Board decided that following Validation, Mongolia had made satisfactory progress in implementing the EITI Standard.

Other features of the 2016 Standard are a greater focus on ensuring that recommendations from EITI Reports are considered and followed up by governments and multi-stakeholder groups so that necessary reforms in sector management take place, as well as other minor revisions aimed at clarifying ambiguities and addressing inconsistencies.