National Coordinator of Publish What You Pay Indonesia, Maryati Abdullah, presented the lesson learnt and experiences of Indonesian CSOs at the Second GPSA Global Partner Forum on May 12th and 13th 2015 in Washington DC, USA. Maryati shared the critical roles of CSOs engagement and advocacy on EITI implementation in Indonesia, from endorsing the initiatives, drafting the regulation, negotiating in the table of multi-stakeholder (MSG), as well as utilizing EITI Report for the public audience in sub-national context of extractive governance. Along with Maryati, representatives from Niger also presented in the forum which’s hosted by Kristina Svennsson, Senior Operations Officer, Energy and Extractives, The World Bank.

The GPSA Global Partner was attended by almost 200 CSOs practitioners, government officials, business, and academic, all working on social accountability. This forum was focused on some of the imperative themes and challenges for social accountability, specifically on exploring themes such to political economy interventions, constructive engagement, coalition building, citizen trust, and social accountability systems. The forum explored some learnings on social accountability practices in several key sectors, such as health, water and sanitation, social protection, extractive industries and others.

The GPSA Global Partner also announced the winners of the first GPSA Award for Leadership in Social Accountability, which’s served as a celebration of their achievements in the field. There are six regional winners – each representing a geographic region: Africa, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. In an Award Ceremony and Cocktail hosted by Sanjay Pradhan, World Bank Vice President for Leadership, Learning, and Innovation, on May 12, the GPSA awarded seven individuals in government and civil society organizations for their outstanding contributions as well as strong influence and impact in the field of social accountability as a mean to eradicate poverty and foster shared prosperity. #(My)