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Over the past decade, Zimbabwe relied on the extractive sector for over 50% of its export earnings. Despite being rich in natural resources, the country is one of the poorest in the world, ranking 150 out of 188 on the UN’s 2019 Human Development Index. Seventy-two percent of its people live below the poverty datum line and our country has the highest level of food insecurity in all of Africa, with 5.8 million people living in acute hunger.
Zimbabwe has fallen behind international best practices in governing its extractive sector. Recently, our government revealed that it is disinclined to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international standard aimed at fighting rampant corruption and enhancing accountability in oil, gas, and mining. Since we will not be able to receive critical contract data through EITI disclosures, we call on the SEC to help us receive this data through granular, project-level company’s Payments to Government disclosures.
Section 13 (4) of Zimbabwe's Constitution compels the state to put in place mechanisms to ensure that communities benefit from resources in their localities. However, since we do not have project-level disclosures for all projects, we cannot know fully what the state is doing with natural resource revenue, and we have no way of knowing whether our communities are receiving the full benefit to which they are legally entitled.
Therefore, we call on the US to provide leadership in promoting good governance in the extractive industries,by at least meeting the bottom bar set by mandatory disclosure rules implemented by Canada, the EU and Norway .………Click here for more information.
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