The Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative-LOGI clearly documents below the process that led to the development of the Code of Conduct that set the criteria and process for civil society's election of its representatives on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative- EITI- Multi Stakeholder Group- MSG.
LOGI led on the process in partnership with the Norwegian People's Aid-Lebanon and with great support from NRGI (Ms. Laury Haytayan and Mr. Matthieu Solomon) and PWYP (Dr. Pierre Saadeh).
The process involved the following steps:
1. Between October 15th and December 15th, 2017:
Six EITI introductory workshops were done. Four were done in the regions: Beirut, South (Saida), North, and Beqaa. The remaining two were done in Beirut targeting political parties and unions. The purpose behind these workshops was to introduce the EITI and to discuss the relevance of developing a Code of Conduct for civil society representation on the EITI MSG. The total number of participants was: 77 participants.
2. On December 5 and 6, 2017 and in partnership with NRGI (December 5th), a two-day workshop for the development of the Code of Conduct was executed. The 11 participants were from civil society organizations. Note should be made here that most of the participants were from organizations that later on formed (March 2018) the Lebanese Coalition for Good Governance in Extractive Industries. The broad outline for the Code was set during this meeting.
3. On December 15th, 2017, a one-day workshop to share the outline and further develop the Code of Conduct with members of the wider civil society was executed. The number of participants was 19, and came from the different regions of Lebanon. ALL had been previously trained on the EITI by LOGI.
4. Between December 2017 and December 2018, LOGI led on the development of the code through sharing versions and receiving valid input from members of civil society, mostly but not exclusively, from the members of the Coalition for Good Governance in the Extractive Sector. A resulting version was also shared with the Lebanese Petroleum Administration-LPA for input to encourage an inclusive transparent process, and in line with best practice.
5. A semi-final version was shared with members of the coalition and wider civil society in early December 2018.
6. On December 28, 2018, a one-day workshop to finalize the Code of Conduct was executed. 15 members from civil society organizations attended (6 members from outside the coalition, 9 members from the coalition). The participants broke into working groups, with each group working on a section of the Code. ALL remarks and edits were then shared and discussed amongst participants.
The remarks received from the LPA earlier were also shared and discussed (only input from LPA was a recommendation to revisit the definition of civil society and politically exposed people).
7. In January 2018, LOGI finalized the Code of Conduct and shared the finalized document with the coalition, (please find below the document) and submitted it in partial fulfillment to the NPA (closure of project).
Moving forward: If any additional changes to the Code fo Conduct are suggested, then this is possible, of course. Nevertheless, it has to be done in the following manner:
1. Resend the Code to all civil society members who contributed throughout the year and a half to the development of the code, asking them for approval to the additions.
2. Convene through a workshop to go through the suggested additions and perform an additional overall revision of the whole code again.
Please note that all supporting documents to the above mentioned are available and are the property of NPA (project donor). If given approval, we will be more than happy to share them (original attendance sheets, CoC versions, and presentations given during all EITI sessions).