A core aspect of Natural Resource Governance Institute’s work is to support transparency in the pursuit of more accountable and effective governance. Over the past year, NRGI has pushed for and secured a more robust Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard that includes disclosure of beneficial ownership information; raised awareness of the enormity of funds unaccounted for when governments secretly sell resources to commodity traders; and, this week, celebrated the release of an official rule by which U.S.-listed oil, gas and mining companies’ will have to disclose their payments to governments.
 
We are an independent, impartial organization and our credibility and ability to “practice what we preach” is at the heart of the way we operate. We also wish to set the bar for others in the field. So, in light of all the work we do to secure transparency elsewhere, we must strive to shine a light on our own operations.
 
For this reason, we’re pleased that Transparify, the first watchdog to scrutinize the financial transparency of organizations like NRGI, has awarded us its top ranking—five stars—for a second consecutive year in a report analyzing over 200 peers (50 more than last year). Only 14 U.S.-based think tanks earned this distinction.
 

In 2014, NRGI received only three of five stars from Transparify; an above-average score, but not good enough—this result was a jarring wake-up call. Immediately improving, as our president and CEO Daniel Kaufmann wrote in 2015, was imperative. NRGI undertook to publish extensive grant information, providing guidance on how funds were used. We repeated those disclosures this year.
 
Transparify’s continued validation is an exciting achievement, and a necessary one for an organization with NRGI’s mission statement.
 
Suneeta Kaimal is the chief operating officer of the Natural Resource Governance Institute.