El Grupo del Banco Mundial

However, despite its limitations, the EITI has achieved some substantial progress, mainly categorised as ‘technical successes’. EITI consultations are designed to create a knowledge-sharing platform and peer-to-peer learning. The analysis of the EITI MSG consultations in Kyrgyzstan reveals that although consultations do not occur regularly, they however created a space for discussions and deliberations, where different actors from the sector meet to express their opinions. It is also a platform for learning and exchanging information related to the extractive industries in the mining sector among different organisational actors. This is confirmed by the statement of the State Agency for Environmental Protection under the Government

“First the EITI broadens our horizons, if we wouldn’t take part in the initiative we wouldn’t know about the activities of each other, here we see opinions of others and what happens in other regions. Before that we were completely unaware about ‘how and why’ revenues flows related to resource management now we somehow understand it”. (Elmira Usupova, Bishkek, December 2015)

In addition to having received the status of compliant, there is now a systematic process and standardisation of procedures guiding revenue earning reporting. Companies are aware of the necessity to submit reports on transparency, and local administrations now understand the importance of such reporting procedures. The EITI National Board also realised the necessity of implementing the EITI deeper and of making reporting available to all segments of the population. The implementation of the EITI principles at the subnational levels through the ‘Public Reception Desks’, and the current translation of the reporting and documentation from English into Russian and Kyrgyz are significant steps taken in this direction. Moreover, the capacity of local communities, government officials, NGOs and companies to understand the importance of reporting in the extractive industries has increased considerably since the implementation of the Initiative.

The improved ability of these actors to read EITI reports and to understand financial flows of the extractive industries has been noticeable. Moreover, there is an increase in demand for getting detailed analyses of revenue flows stemming from mining industries. Local communities gradually start to raise questions about revenue expenditures and their management. Prior to this, the mining sector of the Kyrgyz Republic was extremely opaque. In this sense, partnership agreements have the capacity to produce a

transformative effect and shape the behaviours of their parties, but this very much depends on the political will and mobilisation of the actors involved.

Conclusion

The empirical observations from the EITI MSG in Kyrgyzstan demonstrate that the effective functioning of the MSG in Kyrgyzstan is influenced by the relative paucity of actors involved in the procedure of the EITI. Kaufmann and Bellver (2005, p. 14) point out that the provision of information alone is insufficient. To be effective, it is critical for different social groups to participate in the decision-making process and to have the capacity of analysing and acting upon an analysed situtation. In a client-patron society, such as in Kyrgyzstan, the public sphere is not a space based on the ideas of common good and social justice, but a place where individuals strive for power and personal gains (see Luong, 2002; Cummings, 2012; Shulte, 2008). Consequently, the relatively weak representation and accountability in the national governance systems, where wide gaps exist between local representatives as to who they represent and how (see Huskey and Isakova, 2010), has negative consequences for the development of effective representation and, hence, on multilateral global governance initiatives, such as the EITI. What the study further demonstrates is that it is important to question who the actual NGOs are, and how they are connected to the population they claim to represent within the EITI. The study of the EITI in Kyrgyzstan shows that a deliberative and neutral form of governance in a non-democratic setting reproduces rather than challenges practices of power relations and serves personal gains rather than constituencies they ought to represent. It seems that the pursuit of anti-corruption efforts in Kyrgyzstan is increasingly entangled with elements of authoritarian governance and is more about ‘who is in the network and who is not’. The close association of some local NGOs with international donors created powerful gate-keepers, who use their access privilege or status to favour some groups over others and to cement and further strengthen their position. The state (under different leadership) used the EITI as a political tool to enhance its legitimacy at both national and international levels, to curb domestic security threats and present itself as compliant with international norms while in practice largely ignoring them. The little reforms that were adopted in relation to the EITI, as for instance the adoption of the EITI in the ‘Subsoil use law’ or the ‘Public Reception Desks’ are weak and easy to bypass. Further, the government’s weak participation and lack of financial support also demonstrate the unwillingness of the Kyrgyz government to commit to transparency reforms in the management of the resource sector. What we depict from these

observations is that the Kyrgyz government merely adopted the EITI to please its international and domestic audience but with little commitment to alter its everyday politics. In this sense, the adoption of the EITI merely represents a ‘performative or virtual act’. Just as in the analysis of Andrew Wilson (2005) on ‘Virtual Politics’, what we can depict from the analysis of Kyrgyzstan is that the government seeks to control and steer the EITI according to its interests. In this sense, the EITI plays largely an instrumental role. As a result, the process reproduces the dynamics of a neopatrimonial regime in which formal institutions help to consolidate client-patronage relations. As such, although at the surface the EITI operates as a multi-stakeholder group, its inside dynamic is, however, carefully orchestrated by the regime and its close allies. Clearly, by bringing different non-state actors into the EITI, the regime had ‘virtually’ assigned some forms of opposition or ‘simulated forms of plurality’ largely designed to please the international EITI community.

Further, the process of the EITI is further problematised by weak decentralisation processes and regional dynamics between urban and rural areas. In Kyrgyzstan, as the study demonstrates, top-down state authority is not always followed by the individual leaders of rural communities. As a result, such developments further exacerbate the implementation of the Initiative. Additionally, domestic organisational culture marked by Soviet institutional legacies and traditional clientelistic behaviours impede on the well- functioning of the Initiative. As a result, the EITI implementation process in Kyrgyzstan suggests that, although the Initiative has a standardised path of implementation, its structural governance mechanisms follow a distinct internal logic, which disconnects it from the rules and principles imposed externally72_{. However, this is not to say that the}

Initiative is a complete failure. The benefit of the EITI became largely visible to the actors involved in the Initiative through various organised trainings and workshops rather than to those individuals it is targeting. As the observations on the EITI demonstrate, the population remains largely excluded from the EITI process. The need to share the benefits with the local population is one of the pressing issues that was poorly addressed so far. Additionally, in Kyrgyzstan, the population saw two subsequent revolutions that did not bring any promised change from the government. After seeing a parade of corrupt

72_{On March 9, 2017, the board has suspended the status of Kyrgyzstan due to its failure to comply with}

EITI standards. Main points of concern in Kyrgyzstan relate to insufficient state participation and inadequate representation of the MSG as well as data quality related to revenue disclosure and mandatory social expenditures. Kyrgyzstan has until 8th of September to address corrective actions and pass the second Validation process (for further information see EITI Website: Kyrgyz Republic 2016 Validation [Online]. Available at: https://eiti.org/validation/kyrgyz-republic/2016 [Accessed: 5 April, 2017]

government and being ‘accustomed to corruption’, there is low trust in official state bodies; more generally, there is a general feeling of ‘laissez-faire’, as the population believes that any promised reforms or changes would be left unfulfilled. In the context of Kyrgyzstan, where economic development is weak, jobs are scarce and poverty rampant, the major concern for the population is to ensure their own survival. Hence, the meaning of the EITI and benefits that the Initiative could provide for the population are barely noticed. In the national opinion poll survey conducted in this study, only 16.7 per cent of respondents had heard about the EITI, of those, 33.2 per cent had received information from civil society organisations73.

Chapter 6. Case Study Two: Kazakhstan and the