“Countries with non-renewable natural resource wealth face special opportunities and special challenges. If used well, these resources can create greater prosperity for current and future generations; if used poorly; they can cause economic instability, social conflict and lasting environmental damage”.

Preamble to Natural Resource Charter

The Natural Resource Charter is a global initiative to help governments and societies harness the opportunities created by natural resources effectively. The Charter is organized around twelve Precepts that offer guidance on core decisions that governments face – beginning with the decision to extract the resources, and ending with decisions about using the revenues they ultimately generate http://www.naturalresourcecharter.org/

Precept 1, 2 and 6 & 12 address “Benefit to citizens from development of natural resources” “Transparent and informed public oversight”;“social and environmental effects” and; mitigation and best practice in contracting operations”.
We think these Precepts are of particular relevance to TAI’s work.

TAI has been asked by Revenue Watch Institute (http://www.revenuewatch.org/about-rwi) for our comments on this Charter. We would encourage you to share your comments with us and we will summarize these and provide a joint commentary to them on behalf of TAI.They are currently starting their consultation process and we hope that through providing comments we can be involved especially for partners who are working on transparency and accountability in the extractive sector.