Publish What You Fund was inspired by the success and experience of the Publish What You Pay (PWYP) campaign, which calls for the transparent and accountable management of natural resource revenues. Launched in 2002 by a small group of UK-based NGOs, including Global Witness, CAFOD, Save the Children UK, Oxfam, Transparency International UK, and Open Society Institute, PWYP has grown to become a powerful global civil society coalition spanning over 50 countries. Publish What You Pay and Publish What You Fund are separate and autonomous campaigns, with distinct goals and objectives.

The PWYP coalition has been tremendously successful in getting resource revenue transparency onto the agenda of influential international actors, such as the G8, EU, US Congress, World Bank, IMF and International Accounting Standards Board. Pressure brought to bear by PWYP on the UK Government and extractive companies led to the establishment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global initiative for the disclosure of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining.

Most importantly, PWYP has provided a platform for civil society activists around the world to challenge government leaders and powerful business interests for access to information about extractive industry payments, revenues, licensing agreements and contracts ˆ information that is critical for citizens of resource-rich developing countries to monitor the flow of natural resource revenues and to ensure that this wealth serves as a basis for poverty reduction, economic growth and development. 

The importance of transparency and access to information is a critical issue across sectors, and initiatives similar to the EITI have been recently launched by the UK Department for International Development aimed at medicines and construction projects.