2022 Africa and Middle East Regional Meeting

Anonymously owned companies can be allies of hidden money linked to corruption and other illicit purposes. Their existence and misuse directly prevent the open government community from realising its aspirations. Beneficial ownership transparency is a key tool to address this.

Using a Lightning Talk format, this session will be moderated by a representative from a global organisation and will invite four government and civil society speakers from Liberia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, as well as the audience, into a conversation on successes, challenges, existing tools and progress towards the implementation of beneficial ownership transparency. As many illicit financial flows in Africa still come from extractive industries and other high-risk sectors, the session will include lessons from the Opening Extractives programme delivered jointly by Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and Open Ownership (OO).

All speakers will be invited to share examples and stories around the following questions:
What combination of factors, including the open government process, helped you move from commitment to action ?
How has the extractive sector been pioneering BO reforms and what can other sectors and countries who haven’t started such a process learn from it?
Why is inter-governmental coordination and multi-stakeholder consultation and cross-country collaboration important in developing stronger BO reforms and maximising chances of data use?
Why is it important for reforms to not only focus on data publication but also on quality, accessibility and usability of the BO data disclosed?
How is the risk-based approach shaping BO implementation?

Exploring progress and gaps towards effective analysis and use of existing data, the session will foster cross-sectoral and cross-country learning and provide space for networking for future peer exchanges.