The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Open Ownership collaborated to create the Opening Extractives programme, which works to open up data on the beneficial owners of extractives companies across 11 countries. Oxford Insights conducted a midterm evaluation of Opening Extractives, measuring the programme’s success against its own objectives and OECD DAC criteria. We found evidence that the programme is delivering value across multiple areas and provided recommendations on how the programme could enhance its impact moving forward. Many of our recommendations were accepted, helping to further the programme’s aim of ensuring that citizens of resource-rich countries realise the maximum benefit from natural resource wealth.

The challenge

Extractive industries such as oil, gas, and mining are particularly vulnerable to corruption due to the large amounts of revenue in the sector. Anonymously owned companies often serve as the vehicle for this corruption. Beneficial ownership transparency seeks to make information about who truly benefits from the wealth companies acquire publicly available.

The Opening Extractives programme works to collect and publish beneficial ownership data as well as build the capacity of governments and local stakeholders to analyse this data to improve accountability and governance.

EITI and Open Ownership wanted to know:

• What are the impacts, progress, gaps, and lessons from the past 2.5 years of this programme (in line with OECD Development Assistance Committee evaluation criteria)?
• How can Opening Extractives build upon these learnings to ensure maximum impact over the remainder of the programme?

Our approach

We measured the programme against its stated objectives and outcomes as well as the OECD DAC criteria of effectiveness, impact, relevance, coherence, sustainability, and efficiency.

We collected data via in-depth desk research and stakeholder interviews with Opening Extractives programme leaders, in-country staff, external consultants and partners, and programme funders in 7 countries the programme operates in.

Our impact

Our evaluation found that the Opening Extractives programme has made significant progress over its first 2.5 years of implementation. We found evidence that the programme is delivering value across multiple areas including awareness raising, building capacity across government, providing technical assistance, and facilitating peer exchanges.

We also identified particularly successful areas where the programme should double down on investment, and other areas that would benefit from course correction in the next phase of the programme. Our recommendations will contribute toward the programme’s overall goal of supporting beneficial ownership transparency. Ultimately, collecting and publishing beneficial ownership information publicly should lead to better governance in the extractive sector, meaning that less money is diverted away from the public services that all residents of a country deserve.