On April 9 and 27, the Ministry of Mines and Energy, private companies and civil society organizations that are part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) met in Bogota to discuss the construction of the methodology for reporting environmental payments from the extractive industry.

These two forums addressed issues such as the relationship between payments and investments in the extractive sector within the framework of environmental management, the state of available information, commitments associated with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on environmental public spending and environmental information, among others.

The meetings were attended by organizations that are part of the Civil Society Roundtable for Transparency in the Extractive Industries, such as Foro Nacional por Colombia, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Gestión Ambiental Estratégica and Transparencia por Colombia. In addition, public entities such as the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the National Planning Department and the Mining and Energy Planning Unit, companies such as Ecopetrol and experts in the extractive industry and the environment also participated.

During the meetings, the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development presented to the attendees the information available on environmental collections in the extractive industry, as well as the entities responsible for collecting them. This panorama made it possible to begin the discussion on the scope of the methodology that will have the objective of analyzing the feasibility of systematizing the payments and investments made by the extractive sector in environmental matters.

Further meetings will be held in the coming days to review the scope and development of the methodology.