Guyana became a member of the global Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) in 2017, as part of its response to create a sustainable and transparent extractive sector. The EITI seeks to strengthen government and company systems, inform public debate and promote understanding of the extractive industries value chain.
The Guyana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GYEITI) is the body responsible for implementing this initiative. It is governed by a Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG), composed of equal representation from government, industry and civil society. The MSG is the decision-making authority of GYEITI, and the Minister of Natural Resources has been identified as its Champion.
Communications support is critical to every development initiative. EITI communications activities, in general, are expected to encourage public knowledge about extractive industry governance and to use the EITI report as a tool to improve this governance. Accordingly, the GYEITI is mandated to undertake effective outreach activities with a broad cross-section of society to build transparency and awareness about EITI, its objectives and the progress of its implementation in Guyana. To this end, it is also mandated to enable information-sharing and encourage debate and accountability in an atmosphere of openness, freedom of expression and related guarantees under the Constitution of Guyana.
As the extractive sector expands and evolves there is need for a vibrant and responsive communications strategy as a tool to engage and inform the GYEITI targeted public and Guyanese, as a whole. Consequently, the GYEITI-MSG mandated the development of such a strategy to enable its National Secretariat to: strengthen and enhance its communications strategies, tools and techniques to reach a diverse audience; and to effectively implement MSG decisions and the overall mandate of the EITI.