Dozens of data activist from several members of Publish What You Pay Coalition gathered in Harare, Zimbabwe, last May. They joined “Data Extractor Workshop’ which aims to analyze the very first EU Mandatory Disclosure report. EU Mandatory Disclosure obliges company in the extractive sector (oil, gas, mining andforest) to disclose the data of payment to government where they operated.
According to Research Manager of PWYP Indonesia Meliana Lumbantoruan, besides aimed to create data expert in PWYP network, this workshop also aimed to validate, process, and contextualize the data from EU report. Thus, every participant was expected to create a case study, either related to the findings from the report, or data comparison among countries.
“In that occasion, I proposed a project to validate data between EU Mandatory Disclosure report and data recorded by Government of Indonesia,” said Meliana. This workshop, she continued, brought data extraction and process experts as mentors. The mentors directly assisted participant and provided theoretical and practical training, such as utilization of tool nd application for data extraction. Acting as mentors are from Open Oil (Anton Ruehling, Paul Dziedzic), Natural Resources Governance Institute/NRGI (Joe Williams, David Mihalyi), 3Bridges (Jed Miller) and School of Data (Yuandra Ismiraldi).
In first day, the workshop began with the report update of EU Mandatory Disclosure, delivered by Joe Williams, continued with sharing of learning by mentors, covering Project Level Economic Analysis by Don Hubert (Resource for Development Consulting), Tax Justice by ANCIR, OXFAM and Tax Justice Network Africa.
In the next day, participants were taught to use EU mandatory disclosure report in each case study. Participants also given materials on how to communicate and visualize the data, thus the information delivered are easy to understand. Participants also learned about gap analysis study and comparison between EU Mandatory Disclosure and EITI report. And in the last day, participants work and discuss more on their individual project.
“By this November, participants of Data Extractor are expected to finish the case study, which consist of finding and data utilization related to EU mandatory disclosure report,” said Meliana.
Dewi Yuliandini Hasibuan, delegation from PWYP Indonesia that also joined that workshop got a chance to share her knowledge on Tableau Operation. “This tool can be utilized by civil society to visualize data in an interactive manner,” said her.
Data Extractor Workshop in Zimbabwe was the second workshop, while the first one held in Jakarta. The 3-days workshop was attended by representative from Publish What You Pay Zambia, US, Philippine, France, England, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe as the host.