Established in 1993 by the three friends working from their front rooms, Global Witness now numbers over sixty staff divided between its offices in London and Washington DC, and has a truly impressive track record of success.
Global Witness’s work is cross cutting and multi-dimensional. Our international campaigns operate at the nexus of development, the environment and trade. We are motivated by a desire to tackle the underlying causes of conflict and poverty and to end the impunity of individuals, companies and governments that exploit natural resources for their own benefit at the expense of their people and the environment. From undercover investigations, to high level lobby meetings, we aim to engage on every level where we might make a difference or find out something that will help us bring about change.
Global Witness is working to change international thinking on forest exploitation, to ensure that forests are a benefit to the communities that depend on them, and are regarded as an international asset.
Alongside our work on forests, we are seeking to build awareness of the looming energy supply crunch and to use that as a lever to address the risks of energy security. This is critical to driving the fight against climate change and the imperative shift into safe renewable energy alternatives.
We also need to prevent large-scale depletion and exhaustion of other finite global goods through better regulation, enforcement and governance safeguards. In this light we are developing stands of work on issues such as land-grabbing for food and biofuels and mismanagement and fraud in the global carbon offsets market.