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PHILANTHROPY NEWS DIGEST
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| Name: | Global Witness |
| Founded: | 1993 |
| Directors: | Patrick Alley, Charmian Gooch, and Simon Taylor |
| Address: | P.O. Box 6042, London N19 5WP |
| Phone: | +44 (0)20 7272 6731 |
| E-mail: | mail@globalwitness.demon.co.uk |
| URL: | http://www.oneworld.org/globalwitness/ |
| Mission: | Global Witness is one of a handful of non-governmental investigative organizations working to expose the link between natural resource exploitation and human rights abuses. The organization collects evidence in areas where environmentally destructive trade is funding conflict or human rights violations and uses it to achieve long-term change. |
| Background: | Global Witness was established in 1993 to research, document and publicize human rights, environmental, and other abuses in countries and regions around the world. The organization believes that, in many cases, natural resources are linked to the issues of poverty, conflict, and human rights. Too often, reconstruction and development of countries emerging from long periods of conflict are hindered by individuals and/or organizations that traffic in and exploit a country's natural resources. Global Witness seeks to gather and disseminate information regarding natural resource extraction and its social, ecological, and economic effects, so that the links are understood by those in a position to effect positive change. Audiences for Global Witness' information include governments, NGOs, international donors, development organizations, the media, and the general public. |
| Current Programs: | Global Witness' Cambodia: Natural Resources, Conflict and Resolution campaign was launched in 1995, when the organization revealed that illegal timber logging generated between $10 million to $20 million a month for the Khmer Rouge, which was engaged in a civil war against the Cambodian government. Cambodia's forests, some of the largest and most pristine in Southeast Asia, are the also the country's most exploitable asset. As a result, forest cover in Cambodia has shrunk from 74 percent of the country's area to under 35 percent in the last twenty years, and the World Bank estimates that, at current rates, the country's commercially viable forests will be completely gone by 2003.
The organization is also active in Angola, where its Fiscal Transparency, Corporate Accountability and Corruption and Diamonds and Conflict/Oil and Conflict campaigns were launched in December 1998 and December 1999, respectively. |
| Recent Successes: | In December 1999, Global Witness was named the independent forestry monitor of Cambodia by the World Bank-sponsored Forestry Crime Monitoring Unit. Recently, the organization announced public commitments from the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association to support the international community's efforts to end the conflict in Angola and urging "all members of the diamond industry to refrain from purchasing diamonds originating from Angola without a certificate of origin issued by the government of Angola." |
| Web Site: | The Global Witness Web site provides highlights from its investigative reports, press releases and news updates, and a series of recommendations for future actions. |
| Funding Needs: | Global Witness relies on private foundations and international development organizations for 98 percent of its annual operating budget. The organization, which has nine employees, is exploring the possibility of expanding its investigations to other countries and issues and needs support to explore these possibilities.
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Every week, the NPO Spotlight in Philanthropy News Digest highlights the activities of a nonprofit organization; periodically, we shift the focus to an NGO in a country other than the U.S. Organizations are selected, using a range of criteria, to ensure the broadest possible representation of the nonprofit sector, both in the U.S. and abroad.
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