LEITI Disseminates Extractive Sector Transparency Report in Liberia

For many Liberians living far from Monrovia, decisions about mining, forestry and agricultural concessions can seem to be made in distant government offices, corporate boardrooms and technical meetings whose language is often inaccessible to ordinary citizens. The Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (LEITI) is now attempting to narrow that distance. The institution has launched a nationwide dissemination campaign to take the findings of its 16th EITI Report directly to citizens across Liberia's four regions, using simplified reports, charts, graphs and community discussions to explain how the country's extractive sector operates, what companies are required to pay, what government receives and what obligations concessionaires have under their agreements. The campaign reached Gbarnga, Bong County, on Tuesday, September 15, where LEITI Technical Officer McDonald S. Kerl told participants that transparency has little value if information remains confined to technical documents that ordinary citizens cannot understand or use. Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn "Disseminating the summary report stimulates public debates at various levels within communities across the country," Kerl said. That philosophy could make the exercise particularly important for rural Liberia, where many communities live closest to concession operations but often have the least access to technical information about the contracts governing those operations. The LEITI is therefore taking the extractive debate beyond Monrovia as the nation's natural-resource economy is not a peripheral part of national development. LEITI's 2023 report shows that the extractive sectors covered by the report generated US$152.46 million in government revenue in 2023, equivalent to 21.46 percent of total domestic revenues. Mining, agriculture and forestry also generated about US$1.087 billion in exports, representing 97.55 percent of the country's total exports, while those sectors accounted for 55.66 percent of GDP. Those figures explain why the question of who understands the country's concession agreements--and who can hold their implementers accountable--is not merely technical. It is a question of public governance. The 16th report covers information on revenue collection, production, exports, licenses, contracts, state participation, environmental and social expenditures, beneficial ownership and other dimensions of the extractive sector. LEITI's decision to take simplified versions of that information into communities therefore represents an important shift from disclosure as publication to disclosure as public engagement. The distinction matters. Publishing a 200-page technical report online may satisfy a transparency requirement, but it does not necessarily mean that a farmer in a concession-hosting community, a local journalist, a town chief or a youth leader can determine whether a company is meeting its contractual obligations. A community meeting in Gbarnga, Foya, Zorzor or Voinjama can begin to bridge that gap. Why rural communities stand to benefit most The significance of the initiative becomes clearer when viewed from the perspective of communities where extractive activities actually occur. Residents in concession areas routinely encounter questions concerning employment, roads, schools, clinics, environmental protection, social agreements, land use, community development contributions and other obligations. Yet without access to the relevant contracts and payment information, communities can struggle to distinguish between what a company is legally obligated to provide, what it provides voluntarily and what government itself is responsible for delivering. LEITI's campaign is intended to help make those distinctions clearer. Kerl said citizens would receive information about concession operations, payments made by companies and revenues received by government. He said this could help residents question concessionaires and p