Diarmid O'Sullivan is a veteran transparency activist and writer. As an Open Society Fellow, he will investigate whether increased transparency leads to greater accountability in resource-extractive industries. He will spend nine months carrying out field research in East Timor and Liberia in order to determine how and to what effect civil society in those countries has used reports issued by the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI), the association of governments, private companies and civil society that sets a global standard for public reporting of extractives revenues. His work will culminate in the publication of a comprehensive report on the subject.
O’Sullivan was until recently the Europe Adviser to Global Witness (GW) and represented GW at the EITI International board. Previously, he lead GW’s work on curbing corruption in extractive industries. He is a former Indonesia analyst for International Crisis Group and has worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and Reuters, among other agencies.