The former Deputy Head of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) International Secretariat, Eddie Rich is now the interim head of the Secretariat.
This followed the resignation of pioneer Head of the Secretariat Jonas Moberg, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities.
The EITI international secretariat is based in Oslo, Norway.
Moberg was the EITI’s first Head of Secretariat, and saw the organisation through its formative years. He participated in all the 40 meetings of the board.
e360 learnt from Nigeria’s representative on the EITI board, Ms. Faith Nwadishi, that a farewell session was held for him at the end of the recently concluded board meeting in Berlin, Germany.
“The search for a new head is on but meanwhile, the deputy head Eddie Rich is now the interim head of the Secretariat,” Nwadishi said.
During the meeting, while Netherlands became the newest member of the EITI making it 51 implementing countries, Colombia which went through validation was assessed as ‘satisfactory progress’, and Congo Brazzaville was ‘meaningful progress’ with corrective actions to be taken, e360 reliably learnt.
The second validation for Nigeria is expected to start in July, as part of which some members of the EITI international secretariat will be visiting Nigeria and will speak with CSOs, companies and government officials on the state of implementation of the EITI on the country.
On gender in extractives, Nwadishi said: “I reminded the board of the need to continue the discussion and actions on the issue of gender in the extractives, I suggested that countries could in their subsequent reports give a contextual information on the state of women within the extractives value chain.”
“Hopefully we shall be having a session on Gender in the extractives at the next international conference,” she said.
The next EITI board meeting will hold in October in Senegal, while it’s next conference is slated for 2019,
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