While the EITI is principally focused on implementation at the national level, the global policy process within EITI is critical in that it:

Captures the evolution of stakeholder consensus around what it should mean to ‘do EITI’ which is then encapsulated in different iterations of the EITI Standard; and

Drives forward EITI’s role in shifting policy norms, behaviours and actions of global actors, such as multinational corporations, international civil society groups, donors, multilateral organisations and international financial institutions, and other global partnerships and initiatives

A number of the ‘Guiding Questions’ in the overall Evaluation Questions speak to this global aspect of the EITI. The Evaluation ToRs also note the importance of this policy role and suggest that the evaluation contain a number of policy case studies to complement the country case study work. A ‘long list’ of potential policy areas were proposed in the evaluation’s collaborative design process and those areas are shown in Table below:

Long list of EITI policy case study areas
Multi-stakeholder governance and civic space	Transparency in the trade of oil and minerals
Tax transparency and domestic resource mobilisation	Transparency of state-owned owned enterprises
Licence and contract transparency	Subnational transfers and expenditures
Beneficial ownership transparency
Corruption and energy transition

With the resources available to the evaluation, it is of course not possible to carry out in-depth case studies of all of these policy areas. Because of this the VQ-SC project team considered a number of different screening criteria to help narrow down the list of potential policy case studies. Those criteria included:

Ensuring that each case study will generate data that connects to specific evaluation questions of effectiveness, relevance, impact and sustainability.

Ensuring that at least one policy area spoke to EITI’s global policy role.

Ensuring that at least one policy area had emerged from the two most recent versions of the EITI Standard (2016 and 2019).

Ensuring that at least one policy area spoke to how the EITI is implemented at the national and/or local level.

Which policy areas might be best investigated through other methodological tools (e.g. country case studies, governance sentiment instruments) rather than via a standalone case study.

Whether there are policy areas not listed in the original ToRs that should be considered.

Whether a policy area aligned to easily accessible data, expert interviews, and consultant expertise. Based on those criteria, the evaluation will take the approach to policy case studies as follows:

Final Policy Case Studies
Policy Case Study #1 – Global	Beneficial ownership
Policy Case Study #2 – National / local	Subnational transfers and expenditures
Policy Case Study #3 – Counterfactual	Case study on resource rich countries which have not joined the EITI
Policies to be tested in every country case study and via the GSI #1 ‘Insiders’	Civic space and multistakeholder governance Tax transparency and domestic resource mobilisation

Each policy case study will be informed by:

Desktop research, including the results of parallel research – for example, the Open Government Partnership is currently finalising an evaluation process that includes a strong focus on Beneficial Ownership.

A ‘Policy Forum’ online event that will seek the views of a broad range of stakeholders.

Key stakeholder interviews.

Country-specific insights generated by the Country Case Studies.

Results from the Governance Sentiment Instruments.