Who we are

Publish What You Pay (PWYP) is the only global movement working to ensure that revenues from oil, gas and mining help improve people’s lives. With more than 700 member organisations and 50 national coalitions, we campaign for an open and accountable extractive sector. Our shared vision is a world where everyone benefits from their natural resources – today and tomorrow.

Discover our members

Our strategic approach

PWYP’s 2020-25 strategy lays out the roadmap towards a world where everyone benefits from their natural resources. We’ll be pushing for governments to regulate natural resource extraction in an open and accountable way, for companies to operate within an effective governance framework, and for a civil society with the skills and freedom to drive natural resource extraction that benefits all.

To achieve these goals, we have four strategic goals for 2020-2025.

Read our strategy
Informed
Influential
Heard
Connected

Our history 2002

  • PWYP is founded to address the lack of transparency in the extractive industries and the corruption and mismanagement in many resource-rich countries that this causes, by our six founders – Global Witness, CAFOD, Open Society Institute, Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK and Transparency International UK.
  • The PWYP name is chosen from a 1999 Global Witness report, “A Crude Awakening”, highlighting apparent complicity by the oil and banking industries in the plundering of state assets during Angola’s civil war. The report called on oil companies operating in Angola to “publish what you pay”.
  • British Prime Minister Tony Blair launches the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, following lobbying by PWYP and others on the management of government revenues from extraction. Promoting the initiative becomes a cornerstone of PWYP’s work.

Our history 2003

  • First PWYP national coalitions launch in France and Congo-Brazzaville.
  • The EITI agrees minimum criteria at its Paris meeting.

Our history 2004

  • The EU adopts a Transparency Directive to harmonise minimum disclosure requirements for payments made by EU-listed extractive companies.
  • US oil companies’ elicit payments to Equatorial Guinea, uncovered by PWYP members, are brought to light at US Congress, starting the important conversation on the need for more transparency in the sector.

Our history 2005

  • Global organisations join PWYP’s call for transparency, including the World Bank in its extractive industries report.
  • Azerbaijan becomes the first country to publish an EITI report and win an EITI award.
  • Ghana produces the first EITI report on mining.
  • The first major PWYP pan-African capacity-building workshop takes place in Cameroon.
  • PWYP membership reaches 10 national coalitions.

Our history 2006

  • At PWYP’s International Strategy Meeting in Oslo, members agree on a new mission statement and governance structures.

Our history 2007

  • Nigeria becomes the first country in the world to adopt the EITI into law.
  • Responding to calls from PWYP’s Norwegian coalition, Norway becomes first OECD country to implement the EITI.
  • PWYP’s first major Asia-Pacific conference in Indonesia brings together civil society groups from across the region.
  • The EU adopts a new European Accounting Standard for oil gas and mining, following concerted lobbying by PWYP European affiliates.

Our history 2008

  • PWYP’s agenda is firmly on the global stage, as a UN Resolution is passed highlighting the importance of resource transparency and the EITI.
  • PWYP Norway starts a capacity-building programme for PWYP members in Africa.

Our history 2009

  • In an innovative move, Liberia includes timber extraction in its EITI report, winning an EITI implementing award.
  • Switzerland – where a third of all oil is traded virtually – becomes an EITI-supporting country.
  • At PWYP’s international meeting in Canada, the PWYP coalition agrees to include contract transparency in our areas of work.

Our history 2010

  • Following crucial lobbying by PWYP, President Obama signs into law the Dodd-Frank Act, obliging all US-listed extractive companies to publish their payments to governments in countries where they operate.
  • PWYP Niger successfully pushes for the country’s new constitution to enshrine the principle of resource transparency.
  • PWYP membership reaches 20 national coalitions.

Our history 2011

  • Zimbabwe’s government launches the country’s Mining Revenue Transparency Initiative.
  • PWYP’s Africa Steering Committee is established at our pan-African conference in Kinshasa, to give extra support and coordination to African national coalitions.
  • The EU adopts amendments to strengthen the Transparency and Accounting Directives.

Our history 2012

  • The US releases implementing regulations for the Dodd-Frank Act, detailing how US-listed extractive companies must publish payments to government (this will be reversed with the arrival of a new administration in 2017).
  • PWYP’s 10th anniversary and the launch of our new strategy, Vision 20/20, which officially moves PWYP’s work beyond revenue transparency to include all steps along the extractive value chain.

Our history 2013

  • The EU adopts an Accounting Directive, requiring all large, EU-registered companies to publish their payments to governments, and a Transparency Directive, requiring all EU-listed companies to do so.
  • A new Standard is agreed at the EITI International Conference in Sydney, setting global goals for open and accountable management of extractive resources.

Our history 2015

  • Hosted by the Open Society Foundation since its inception, PWYP becomes an independent entity, with a decentralised Secretariat partly based in London.

Our history 2016

  • Members from around the world gather for PWYP’s Global Assembly in Peru to address issues including the environmental effects of extraction and EITI impact and data use. Areas highlighted for future PWYP focus include tax justice, climate change and gender.
  • We launch our flagship Data Extractors Programme, a global initiative which trains participants to access, analyse and use revenue data to uncover potential corruption and expose the economic and social impacts of extraction on local communities and advocate for change.
  • In close collaboration with partners and members, PWYP helps secure important improvements to the EITI Standard, including the requirement that extractive companies disclose their beneficial owners by 2020.
  • Together with CIVICUS, we publish a report documenting the increasing threats to activists fighting for natural resource justice around the world.
  • PWYP has a strong presence at the London Anti-Corruption Summit, where transparency in commodities trading is a central demand.
  • PWYP membership reaches more than 40 national coalitions and 700 individual members.

Our history 2017

  • The number of “payments to governments” reports published by large, publicly listed extractive companies – produced in response to new mandatory disclosure laws in Canada, the EU and Norway – increases from around 100 to more than 500.
  • A high-profile report by PWYP Australia and testimony from PWYP members to a Senate inquiry help secure a commitment from Australia’s Labor party to introduce a mandatory disclosure law if elected.
  • PWYP mobilises to support members in countries facing civil society repression, including Niger, where PWYP Board member Ali Idrissa is granted early release after serving five months in jail for peacefully protesting against a new finance law.
  • By coordinating the civil society agenda on the international EITI Board, PWYP helps achieve project-by-project disclosure of payments by companies from 2018.
  • We publish the first guide to help civil society maximise its impact in the EITI.

Our highlights

PWYP has contributed to significant change across the extractive sector. In more than 50 countries, secretive payments to governments by extractive companies have been replaced by public reports, while more than 30 of those countries have passed laws requiring companies to publish their payments and are working with communities to ensure everyone benefits fairly from natural resources. Read our inspiring stories to see the difference PWYP makes.

Fighting for Informed Community Choices

Highlight | Oct 3, 2019 Fighting for Informed Community Choices

Industry allies in the fight for transparency

Highlight | Aug 29, 2019 Industry allies in the fight for transparency

Equatorial Guinea: A Move to Rejoin Anti-Corruption Group

Highlight | Jun 26, 2019 Equatorial Guinea: A Move to Rejoin Anti-Corruption Group

Read our Annual Report 2018

Tell us your story

We welcome stories and blogs from our members, please email us to contribute.

Send us your story