Global Witness - Breaking the links between natural resources, conflict and corruption

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Where does Global Witness get its funding?

The majority of our funding comes through grants from trusts and foundations, development organisations, governments and individuals. We rely on voluntary income to meet the costs of our activities and have only limited opportunities to generate earned income. For more information, please click here.

During the last financial year (December 2007 - November 2008), approximately 63% of our income came in the form of grants from trusts and foundations, such as Zennström Philanthropies in the UK and the Adessium Foundation in the Netherlands. 26% came from grants from statutory sources such as the Swedish government. 5.9% came from grants from multilateral organisations and NGOs, such as Trocaire in Ireland and Oxfam Novib in the Netherlands. The remaining of our income came from donations made by other organizations and individuals.

We only accept grants on the basis that we are free to use funds in a way that does not compromise our values, objectives, priorities or the independence of our campaigning voice. We do not accept funding from any source that has disregarded the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the course of their activities, carried out environmentally harmful practices or that is involved in the extractives, timber or arms industries.

The majority of grants we receive are time bound. When they come to an end there is no guarantee that they will be renewed. This is why we are always seeking to broaden our supporter base. Gifts from individuals, and particularly regular gifts, help us to plan future work, safe in the knowledge that our campaigning is sustainable. We are actively trying to build a working reserves base and a new programmes fund in order that we can plan our work, develop new initiatives and react quickly to critical new campaigning needs.

Won't my donation just get spent on administration?

We are highly efficient and spend 90% of our funds on our campaigns to break the links between the exploitation of natural resources, conflict, corruption, human rights abuses and the destruction of the environment. We spend around 8% of our funds on raising money, 1% on management and 1% on administrative costs.

Why spend money on campaigning rather than sending aid to those in need?

We believe that our campaigning achieves long-term and sustainable global change. Whilst development projects in poor countries are essential to alleviating poverty and suffering, alone they cannot solve our world’s problems – we need to take action to address the underlying causes of poverty, instability and suffering as well.

We work to address what is commonly known as the 'resource curse', whereby countries with large endowments of natural resources frequently endure authoritarian rule, are disproportionately corrupt and have large sectors of their population living in abject poverty despite their country’s natural wealth.

Throughout the world earnings from oil, diamonds and other resources are being stashed away by ruling elites in foreign bank accounts. In the worst cases, corrupt governments siphon off such revenues for personal use whilst their populations subsist on international food aid programmes. For example, in 2004 Global Witness obtained IMF documents showing that over 1 and a half billion dollars worth of oil money went going missing from the Angolan treasury each year. This amount of money could pay for treatment for every HIV positive person in the country.

Whilst we recognise the immense importance of projects that deliver direct aid that alleviate suffering, Global Witness focuses our efforts on changing the policies and inequalities that keep people poor. Our ultimate vision is of a world in which populations as a whole are able to benefit from revenues raised from the sustainable use of natural resources. We work hard to ensure that once we have exposed corrupt and inequitable natural resource extraction in a particular country, local activists and groups are given appropriate support to strengthen the call for change.

Why focus on policy solutions?

Global Witness believes that policy changes are essential to tackling the resource curse. For example, in order to prevent corrupt governments stealing vast sums of money paid to them by foreign companies who want to extract their oil, Global Witness campaigns for policies which will make it mandatory for oil companies to make public what they pay to host governments. In order to prevent revenues from the sale of diamonds from ever again paying for war, Global Witness is campaigning for the diamond industry to change the way it operates and become more transparent and accountable. If corrupt leaders and rebel armies are unable to sell the natural resources they plunder, they are unable to pay for war.

Global Witness is fortunate to have great credibility with, and high-level access to policy makers. Over the last twelve years this has led to numerous concepts and recommendations for reform formulated by Global Witness being used to form the basis of international policy. Global Witness does not however, campaign on behalf of any political organisation and does not accept donations from political parties.

Campaigning costs money – but by making a donation to Global Witness you will be helping us to achieve practical and long lasting steps towards ensuring that natural resources change lives for the better. For around £3,000,000 a year, we run campaigns that benefit the lives of millions of people around the world.

 

What does my donation achieve?

·         Global Witness’ report A Choice for China exposed the US$350 million a year illegal timber trade across the Burma/China border, which led to China closing the border to this trade, in May 2006. 

·         Raising public awareness of the ongoing problem of conflict diamonds and the wider global problem of conflict resources – maximising opportunities created by the release of Hollywood blockbuster Blood Diamond – and successfully campaigning for crucial improvements in the Kimberley Process including the need for increased government oversight of the diamond industry. 

·         Getting mechanisms in place which will determine for the first time whether countries signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) are genuinely working towards making their income from oil, gas and mining transparent or are, like Congo Brazzaville and Equatorial Guinea, merely free riding on the initiative’s good name. 

·         Supporting, with hard facts and analysis, Liberian President Sirleaf’s call for the renegotiation of a grossly inequitable US$900 million mining deal between Mittal Steel, the world’s biggest steel company, and the Government of Liberia and helping to ensure a better deal for the people of Liberia. 

·         Piloting Independent Forest Monitoring (IFM) in Nicaragua - at the invitation of the National Forestry Institute. IFM has been pioneered by Global Witness to provide objective information around forest exploitation and to create a political space that fosters transparent forest governance.  

·         Exposing how a vital supply route for natural gas to the European Union is dominated by mysterious business interests (with suspected links to organised crime) and is utterly failing to bring any economic benefits to the population of the country of origin. Our report It’s a Gas: Funny Business in the Turkmen-Ukraine Gas Trade reveals the completely opaque nature of the trade that brings natural gas from Turkmenistan through Russia and Ukraine to Europe, and how US$ 3 billion of Turkmenistan’s gas revenues have been kept out of the state budget in accounts at Germany’s Deutsche Bank.  

·         Highlighting how British company Afrimex contributed to the devastating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo by trading in conflict resources, including testifying before the UK Parliaments’ International Development Committee.  

·         Through our Cambodia campaign, instigating a new commitment from the World Bank to review its policy on forest projects worldwide. We have been working since the late 1990s to change the Bank’s approach to forest management, specifically in attempting to dissuade it from supporting the interests of logging companies over forest-dependent communities.  

·         Our investigations contributing to Dutch  timber trader Guus Kouwenhoven being sentenced to eight years in   prison for breaking a UN arms embargo, and as such helping to fuel conflict in West Africa. However, this conviction was overturned on appeal in 2008, due to insufficient evidence. 

Can I restrict my donation a specific area of activity?

Yes. For single donations of £1,000 or more we can restrict your donation to a specific area of activity. Please let us know when you make your donation.