The World Bank Group’s Governance Global Practice and Energy and Extractives Global Practice will host a follow-on panel discussion on “The Role of Parliaments in Ensuring Communities Enjoy the Development Dividend from Extractive Industries” on Tuesday 14 April 2015 from 10am (Washington DC time). The panel will draw on inputs from parliamentary delegations that participated in the Helsinki Parliamentary Seminar and will include contributions from Satu Leena Santala, the WBG Executive Director for Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Estonia, and Mario Marcel, Senior Director of the Governance Global Practice.

Speakers:
Hon. John Cheyo, Member of Budget Committee, Parliament of Tanzania
Satu Leena Santala, Executive Director, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, World Bank Group
Mario Marcel, Senior Director, Governance Global Practice, World Bank Group

Moderator:  
Christopher Sheldon, Practice Manager, Energy and Extractives Global Practice, World Bank Group 

Session overview
Resource rich developing countries face unique challenges in ensuring that revenues from Extractive Industries (EI) are used to foster economic development, reduce poverty and promote shared prosperity.

Effective governance of extractive revenue is a precondition for ensuring that the ‘development dividend’ that is meant to flow from the decision to extract becomes a reality.  Good governance of the sector requires sufficient participation, transparency, and accountability across the entire EI value chain. A wide range of stakeholders can contribute to these governance objectives, whether they be government agencies, private sector, civil society, and formal accountability institutions, such as parliaments. 

Parliaments - as constitutionally mandated deliberative institutions with direct responsibility for approving the annual budget and overseeing the government - are coming to the fore as key stakeholders in ensuring the annual budget process is used as a tool for ensuring extractive revenues are equitably shared while at the same time fostering the countries' overall economic development and poverty reduction.  Parliaments are able to contribute to this objective by ensuring extractive revenues are accurately captured in budget forecasts and estimates, appropriations are focused on delivering services to affected communities, and by providing effective oversight of governments’ management of the sector. 

This panel discussion focuses on how parliaments can draw on secondary data sources, such as information published through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, to verify the accuracy of the government estimates and use the supply process to help ensure the ‘development dividend’ flows from extractive revenues.  The session draws on the experience shared during the recent 2015 Annual Helsinki Parliamentary Seminar, hosted by the Parliament of Finland as part of the World Bank-Finnish Parliamentary Partnership.