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Celebration of Timor Leste as EITI Compliant Country - 1st in Asia-Pacific and 3rd in the World

Timor Leste has been officially acknowledged by international EITI (Extractive Industry Transparency Innitiative) board as first Asia-Pacific country and third in the world that complies with EITI validation indicators.

The innitiative (EITI) is an international movement innitiated by civil society groups to hold transparency and accountability of governments and companies in managing fund resulted from extractive industries to ensure that the fund will be allocated to development of the country and at the same time to avoid the so called "resource curse". In practice, the innitiative is implemented in a form of multi-stakeholder working group where CSOs, government and companies working together toward transparency and accountability in using the fund.

In Timor Leste, Luta Hamutuk Institute plays active role from the part of civil society in the multi-stakeholder working group. Mericio Akara, the Director has key role to push the validation process forward until its compliance and Luta Hamutuk also commits to bring the innitiative down to grass root level so that communities in rural area at one point can hold accountability of TL government in using oil & gas fund through annual state budget.

During the celebration of Timor Leste as EITI compliant country on 6 August 2010, Mericio Akara, Luta Hamutuk Director was invited as one of the key note speakers.

source: Brian Emanuel