The newly appointed Executive Director of Publish What You Pay (PWYP) has indicated her resolve to take the global network to a different level, committing to build a stronger movement towards a just, cleaner, and fairer world where communities have a say.
Ketankandriana Rofitosin, who was appointed in July this year has been a dedicated human rights defender and have spent her life fighting for transparency and accountability having led the Malagasy national coalition as a volunteer for four years.
Ke, as she is easily referred to, plans to bring her experience of coordinating a national coalition and campaigns to the global leadership of the PWYP network.
In her own words, “It is time to take our movement to another level, and we will achieve this together! We will make a difference.”
Following her appointment, Ke engaged the various coalitions with the objective to collectively shape PWYP’s future.
In one of such webinar engagements with PWYP coalition in Ghana, Ke reiterated the need to work together in solidarity from the grassroots to the international secretariat level to advance the objectives of the Coalition.
She highlighted the prerequisite to galvanize the movement to a level that is built on mutual trust and solidarity across all the networks and communities.
She also noted desire to move PWYP from being a network into a global movement where membership is supportive of each other and working with mutual trust and solidarity to surmount the problems.
In Ghana, the PWYP Coalition did well in the past, leading on issues of Transparency and accountability. Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) has subsequently generated an enormous amount of data that can be used to deepen the work in the extractive sector, however there seem to be some slacking in the area of transparency and accountability especially on current developments in the mining sector.
During the webinar, members of the coalition observed that contract transparency and extractive sector fiscal regimes is still a big issue that requires CSOs action. The government,according to them, is moving on with some processes especially on Bauxite contracts.
“We have issues with the Oil and Gas sector too but perhaps we are doing relatively better with PIAC leading some accountability processes together with other works by CSOs ongoing in the country.”
The Coalition called for more frequent conversations to bring members up to speed with the issues to foster more solidarity.
The members added, “There is the need to continue with these kinds of dialogues, encourage learning exchange visits and helping communities to learn from each other. We should maintain contact between the International Secretariat and the national coalitions to learn and foster more unity and support for each other in what we are doing.”
They noted that PWYP has traditionally focused on mining and related issues but the fisheries, and forest sector issues are an interesting perspective that requires the PWYP Coalition’s attention.
The meeting was meant to familiarize with the membership and to seek views and expectation as the movement continue to develop its new strategy. Coalition members present took the opportunity to introduce their organizations and what they do to advance the objectives of PWYP.
By: Mohammed Suleman/Publicagenda.news
