By Porter McConnell - Manager of the Financial Transparency Coalition.
When the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development was created in 2009, only a handful of experts were following the issue of... read more
News and reports
The majority of logging permits in use in Ghana will not fall within the legal definition the country has agreed with the European Union (1), documents obtained by Global Witness reveal. Analysis of over 800 permits... read more
There is a possibility that US authorities may be forced to consider a more severe penalty for HSBC than previously expected for money laundering charges, said Global Witness today. Last December the bank agreed... read more
Naturalist and comedian Bill Oddie will today attend the HSBC annual general meeting to seek answers from the board of directors over the bank’s lending to companies destroying Borneo’s rainforests. The companies that... read more
As demand for commodities, especially food, fuel and fibre, grows, we see more competition for land, including forested land, upon which millions depend directly for their livelihoods. With our historical insights into... read more
22.05.2013 | Monitoring forestry operations and investors
Forests, land and other environmental resources maintain our planet’s vital life support system and the livelihoods of billions of people. Tropical forests are particularly important for mitigating climate change... read more
22.05.2013 | Increasing transparency and anti-corruption safeguards for Chinese overseas investments
Resource-for-infrastructure deals are an important means of investment for Chinese companies overseas and represent a significant new development model for the world. Global Witness research has shown that improved... read more
22.05.2013 | Disclosure in the oil, gas and mining industries
Many countries rich in natural resources are mired in poverty because of corruption and mismanagement of these resources. We believe that better disclosure and management of revenues paid to governments in resource-... read more
Resource-linked conflicts not only lead to widespread human suffering and social unrest. They are also detrimental to commercial investments in the long term and are a threat to secure resource supplies. For... read more
22.05.2013 | China Programme
简体中文
China is the most important emerging global power, a major operator in natural resource extraction around the world and a large country with major land and forest assets. The country’s supply of natural resources... read more
22.05.2013 | Liberian government publishes landmark resource audit, but urgently needs to address findings
Publication of a full audit of how Liberia awarded its resource concessions between 2009 and 2011 is a global first, said campaigning watchdog Global Witness today. The audit, which was published last week, reveals... read more
Thursday's 6th Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Global Conference in Sydney will see oil, gas and mining executives, campaigners, investors and government officials ratify improvements in... read more
21.05.2013 | Danzer dropped by FSC over “unacceptable activities “in Congo; victims still await justice
Global Witness welcomes today's decision by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to dissociate itself from the Danzer Group, in light of accusations of human rights abuses in the Democratic... read more
Litigation runs contrary to the UK G8 Presidency’s push for a global transparency standard
Global Witness is attending Shell’s AGM in The Hague today to ask the company to drop its support for a lawsuit that... read more
Cambodia | Illegal Logging | Laos | Forests | Land Deals
Global Witness understands that Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) CEO Doan Nguyen Duc held a press conference during which the company contested evidence in Global Witness’ report ‘Rubber Barons’. This report highlights how the... read more
Litigation runs contrary to the UK G8 Presidency’s push for a global transparency standard
Global Witness is attending Shell’s AGM in The Hague today to ask the company to drop its support for a lawsuit that... read more
Cambodia | Illegal Logging | Laos | Forests | Land Deals
Global Witness understands that Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) CEO Doan Nguyen Duc held a press conference during which the company contested evidence in Global Witness’ report ‘Rubber Barons’. This report highlights how the... read more
Read this press release in English
El proyecto de construcción de una carretera de 270 km de longitud atravesando la Amazonía peruana está plagado de incumplimientos de la ley y posibles conflictos de intereses, según... read more
Leer este comunicado en Español
Plans to build a 270 km highway through the Peruvian Amazon are mired in legal violations and potential conflicts of interest, said Global Witness in a new report today.
The Purús highway... read more
14.05.2013 | Bill Oddie evicted from HSBC HQ while protesting against bank’s role in Malaysian rainforest destruction
Oddie has teamed up with the campaign group Global Witness to expose how the UK’s biggest bank has made almost £100 million by providing loans and services to some of the most destructive logging companies in the... read more
14.05.2013 | Bill Oddie evicted from HSBC HQ while protesting against bank’s role in Malaysian rainforest destruction
Naturalist and comedian Bill Oddie has been filmed being evicted from HSBC’s London headquarters while protesting against the bank’s business ties to companies that are illegally destroying rainforests and abusing human... read more
13.05.2013 | International Finance Corporation and Deutsche Bank bankrolling Vietnamese land grabs in Cambodia and Laos
Click here to read the report and watch the film
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank are financing Vietnamese rubber companies driving a wave of land and forest "grabs" in Cambodia and... read more
13.05.2013 | International Finance Corporation and Deutsche Bank bankrolling Vietnamese land grabs in Cambodia and Laos
Cambodia | Illegal Logging | Laos | Forests | Land Deals
Click here to read the report and watch the film
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank are financing Vietnamese rubber companies driving a wave of land and forest "grabs" in Cambodia and... read more
09.05.2013 | Global Witness welcomes Kofi Annan’s call for financial transparency in African resource deals
Campaign group Global Witness has backed a call by prominent figures including Kofi Annan, Bob Geldof and Graca Machel for Africa’s natural resource wealth to be used for the benefit of its people. This year’s report... read more
09.05.2013 | Oil law before Congo parliament fails to safeguard against corruption or environmental damage – Global Witness
Planned revisions to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s hydrocarbons law contain major flaws that could allow gross mismanagement of the country’s oil wealth and serious environmental impacts. The draft text,... read more
07.05.2013 | New investigation from Global Witness reveals high-level military involvement in eastern Congo's gold trade
简体中文
At a critical time for the region's minerals trade companies must undertake supply chain checks and put responsible sourcing into practise
Global Witness' investigation last month in eastern Democratic Republic of... read more
Global Witness welcomes a new audit recommending that the Liberian government take immediate action to address systematic gaps in compliance with laws on how its natural resources are allocated. The report, commissioned... read more
US investment bank Goldman Sachs appears to have turned a blind eye to glaring corruption risks and conflicts of interest in order to underwrite US$1.6 billion in bonds for the Sarawak State Government, Malaysia, said... read more
Click here to download this report
Cliquez ici pour lire ce communiqué de presse en français
简体中文
Systematic abuse of small, poorly regulated logging permits in Africa by companies, forest officials and politicians is... read more
Global Witness raised repeated concerns of corruption risks over opaque mining deals in Congo
The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced yesterday that they are opening a criminal investigation into FTSE 100... read more
Read the original report
Read the press release to accompany this report
Read the ensuing debate in the Houses of Parliament
Since publishing the report Financing a Parallel Government in June 2012, we have... read more
简体中文
Click here to read the press release.
Click here for response from DRC government.
Industrial logging companies and officials are systematically abusing community logging permits in order to bypass the Democratic... read more
11.10.2012 | New Congolese oil and mining codes must include strong measures on transparency, tenders and community rights
As the Democratic Republic of Congo begins the process of revising its mining and oil codes, Global Witness has published its recommendations on how the codes could best ensure transparent and accountable management of... read more
This interactive map by Cambodian organisation Licadho lays bare the speed and scale of the landgrabbing crisis currently gripping Cambodia. Over 2.1 million hectares of land – roughly the total area of Wales... read more
04.09.2012 | Signing Their Lives Away: Liberia’s Private Use Permits and the Destruction of Community-Owned Rainforest
Read press release on this issue
Click here for Government announcement of investigation into this issue.
A quarter of Liberia’s total landmass has been granted to logging companies in just two years,... read more
29.08.2012 | Global Witness comment on SEC conflict minerals rule
Click here to read our initial comment on some of the key provisions relating to companies’ implementation.
On 22 August the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted on the rules for the Dodd... read more
A summary by Global Witness, June 2012
Read our briefing document summarising baseline evaluations of artisanal mining communities in eastern DRC.
Seven baseline evaluations of artisanal mining communities in eastern... read more
Read our FAQ on the current situation in eastern DRC
A new rebellion against the Congolese government was launched in April 2012 in eastern DRC. The insurgent group is known as the M23 and is thought to comprise around... read more
02.07.2012 | Letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for concrete benchmarks at upcoming Tokyo Conference
Thirteen congressional representatives sent a letter today to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ahead of a key donor conference on Afghanistan being held in Tokyo later this week. The letter highlights the... read more
20.06.2012 | Financing a parallel government?
Conflict Minerals | Zimbabwe | Conflict Diamonds | Business and Human Rights | Conflict | Corruption
Read the press release to accompany this report
Read the ensuing debate in the UK Parliament
This report reveals how Zimbabwe’s feared secret police, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), appears to have received... read more
17.06.2012 | Grave Secrecy
简体中文
Read the Press Release
Grave Secrecy was published in June 2012. It reveals evidence that numerous UK companies have been involved in a major money laundering scandal involving a Kyrgyzstan bank, and shows how... read more
This paper puts forward some ideas for how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that sets the global standards designed to curb financial crime, can ensure that these standards are actually implemented... read more
12.06.2012 | Global Witness's memo to ENRC's shareholders
ENRC must address corruption concerns in DRC and publish findings.
Click the link below to download the full memo. read more
11.06.2012 | Joint civil society letter - Four Core Objectives for Good Governance in Afghanistan’s extractives sector
On July 8th 2012, the international community and Afghan government will meet in Tokyo to discuss Afghanistan's future development.
Ahead of the conference, Global Witness has joined national and international NGOs in a... read more
Organisations representing over 1000 civil society groups have written to the EU calling on it to establish a new standard for company ownership transparency. NGO coalitions including Publish What You Pay, the UN... read more
03.02.2011 | Global Witness for The Times - British business simply can not afford a delay to the Bribery Act
Read this article on The Times website.
We are desperately trying to rebuild British business after the financial crisis. Against that backdrop, you would think that an update to archaic anti-bribery laws that brings... read more
Read this blog on Huffington Post.
When governments around the world are taking measures in support of fiscal austerity, foreign assistance is always a prime target for the chopping block. Bravely, some governments,... read more
This piece first ran on the Guardian website.
The rich world has been busy tightening its belt in recent weeks, with Britain, Germany and Spain all announcing the severest economic cuts in generations and... read more
09.04.2010 | Good news and bad news in the fight for libel reform
I was delighted to see Simon Singh's victory at the Court of Appeal last week, after a massively expensive, two-year fight to defend his right to contest the scientific opinion of the British... read more
03.02.2010 | John Terry's own-goal may benefit civil society
By Charmian Gooch, Founding Director
It's ironic that it takes the hushing of the England football captain's affair to highlight the scale of a problem that threatens campaign groups like Global Witness ... read more
02.02.2010 | Serial optimists disguise urgency of energy concerns
By Simon Taylor, Founding Director
Geoffrey Smith's piece, Energy Guru brings good news to Davos centring on Pulitzer prize winner Daniel Yergin's exuberance about future global oil supply, is typical of the over-... read more
Blog from Global Witness Director, Patrick Alley
If the organisation of the climate talks in Copenhagen is anything to go by, even the best-intentioned negotiations would be lucky to succeed. Queues hundreds of metres... read more
25.04.2011 | Foreign Policy - The New Geopolitics of Food
From the Middle East to Madagascar, high prices are spawning land grabs and ousting dictators, writes Lester Brown. read more
An international financial crime watchdog has been urged not to relax its stance on monitoring political officials in the light of the desperate scramble to freeze the assets of deposed leaders in the Middle East and... read more
If you express concerns about the negative consequences that over-dependence on aid can have for development, as I did in Mali recently, a common response is that there is no alternative. How else can vital services and... read more
European governments need to force businesses to be transparent if Africa's poor are to benefit from oil's riches, says the Guardian's Economics Editor Larry Elliot in the wake of George Osborne's commitment to support... read more
William Hague 'lobbied strongly' for oil companies run by Tory donors, according to the Telegraph. read more
07.02.2011 | Time Magazine - Forests vs. Food?
Time Magazine's Ecocentric Blog: Forests vs. Food? read more
23.01.2011 | The Christian Science Monitor: As Ivory Coast's Gbagbo holds firm, 'blood diamonds' flow for export
The Christian Science Monitor: As Ivory Coast's Gbagbo holds firm, 'blood diamonds' flow for export read more
The US-sponsored plot to kill Patrice Lumumba, the hero of Congolese independence, took place 50 years ago today, says the Guardian's Poverty Matters blog. read more
Nicholas Christof's blog on New York Times - Notes From a Young American in Congo: A Good Man… read more
As we are forced to change the way we think about energy, the energy consumer is caught between need and the increasing risks involved in securing traditional energy sources. The links between energy provision and... read more
21.12.2010 | Guardian - Transparency will make aid work better
A global standard on sharing information is at the heart of democratising aid – for donors and for recipients, says Owen Barder on the Guardian's Global Development Blog. read more
13.12.2010 | New York Times: Why We Might Fight, 2011 Edition
Countries thirst for oil, compete for minerals and confront climate change, says Tom Shanker of the New York Times. The American military, with surprising allies, worries that these issues represent a new source of... read more
13.12.2010 | Guardian: Will Sudan let the south go peacefully?
Southern Sudan looks set to vote for independence – but lingering questions over the future of Abyei are worrying, asks the Guardian's Peter Moszyinski. Read here. read more
BBC News - French appeals court reopens African assets case read more
IEA fear oil spike if climate pledges fail read more
Back in 2009 it was heralded as a potential model for reducing rates of deforestation and REDD+ but Nowary's deal with Guyana appears to have made little progress, writes Girish Gupta. read more
24.11.2011 | Daily Telegraph: Britain's aid towards Democratic Republic of Congo under scrutiny over mining deals
This op-ed appeared in the International Herald Tribune
The Stolen Money Trail
By Anthea Lawson
Earlier this month, Swiss bank regulators found that four Swiss banks had not done enough to identify dictators’ assets... read more
A suspected Sudanese air strike on a refugee camp in South Sudan will not trigger a return to war but belligerent posturing on both sides will complicate and slow talks over oil transit fees and other sensitive disputes... read more
10.11.2011 | Centre for Public Integrity: China-based corporate web behind troubled Africa resource deals
For centuries, wave after wave of colonists and foreign investors have swept through Africa, looking for profits from the continent’s abundant reserves of oil and prized minerals, write Beth Morrissey, Himanshu... read more
06.09.2011 | The Hill - A Crucial Few Weeks for Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) mineral market has vast potential, and if properly regulated, could be the catalyst for the country’s development while offering solid returns for international investors.... read more
With Colonel Muammar Gaddafi all but gone, Libya's prospects can be summed up in one word: oil, says Vivienne Walt in TIME Magazine. Far different from the revolutions in Tunisia or Egypt, or the rebellions in Yemen... read more
Human rights organisations are calling on donor governments to reassess their aid programmes to Cambodia if the country passes a law that can be used to muzzle local and foreign NGOs, writes the Guardian's Marc Tran. read more
31.08.2011 | FT - Wealth fund still conceals inner secrets
Beyond the immediate priority of securing control of the LIA assets frozen as a result of international sanctions, the challenge confronting Libya’s new leadership is how to reform an institution that, if it survives in... read more
15.07.2011 | Guardian | Act now on oil to stop future Gaddafis
The 40-nation Libya contact group is meeting with the Interim National Transitional Council to decide how best to support the rebels against Muammar Gaddafi's forces. Global Witness's Brendan O'Donnell argues on Comment... read more
08.07.2011 | Christian Science Monitor - World's newest country: South Sudan's oil remains a sticking point
As its independence draws near, South Sudan has yet to agree how to divide oil revenues with its northern neighbor, which has the infrastructure to export the oil the south needs to sell to survive - read here. read more
Heavy fighting along the border between north and south Sudan has displaced tens of thousands of people and further complicated next month's planned southern independence, jeopardizing billions of dollars in oil revenue... read more
The London-based anti-corruption campaign group, Global Witness, said it has evidence that Teodorin Obiang, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry of the tiny West African state of Equatorial Guinea, has plans to... read more
This article was published in the Financial Times on 24th February 2011.
Read press advisory on this issue.
Don't make it easier for dictators to steal
By Anthea Lawson, head of Kleptocracy campaign
The world may... read more
What we're reading
Global Witness in the press
05.06.2013 | The Economist supports global transparency standard
For general enquiries please contact +44 (0)207 492 5820, mail@globalwitness.org.
For urgent out of hours enquiries please contact Andrea Pattison on +44 (0)797 010 3083.
