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Revenues from oil should spur economic growth and social development in developing countries. In many resource-rich countries in Africa, however, the lack of accountability and transparency in the management of these revenues exacerbates poor governance and often fuels cycles of corruption, conflict, and poverty. As the international community seeks alternatives to Middle Eastern oil and new reserves enter production, Africa’s oil revenues will multiply over the coming decade. A number of analysts believe that economies overly dependent on oil wealth encourage authoritarian rather than democratic forms of governance.
To meet this challenge, civic groups, government reformers and representatives of the international community are increasingly pushing for more accountability and fiscal transparency in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. These reformist groups need specialized tools and knowledge to guard against increased corruption in resource-rich democratic states and to fight authoritarian regimes seeking to further consolidate their power. Effective transparency initiatives must foster cooperation beyond governments and multinational corporations to include the participation of legislative bodies, political parties, civic organizations and the media.
The National Democratic Institute’s (NDI) program is aimed at strengthening the capacity of legislatures and civic groups to create and utilize more accountable and transparent mechanisms for monitoring the collection and use of extractive industry revenues. Specifically, NDI seeks to identify and raise awareness of effective policies, strategies, structures and techniques for overseeing revenues from extractive industries and assist reformers in selected countries to develop strategies for increasing democratic oversight of extractive industry revenues.
In an effort to assess the ability of legislatures and civic groups to promote transparency in the extractive sector, NDI interviewed members of parliament, ministerial officials, representatives of the private sector, multilateral agencies, donor and non-governmental organizations in nine African countries--Angola, Botswana, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa. The resulting report, Transparency and Accountability in Africa’s Extractive Industries: The Role of the Legislature, summarizes key findings of the interviews and describes the challenges that African legislators face in overseeing their countries’ oil and mining industries. It also highlights best practices and offers recommendations for greater engagement on the part of legislators, civic groups and the international community.
The Institute plans to conduct roundtable meetings in two of the countries where the study was conducted to disseminate the report findings, bring together reformers from each of the countries where the research was conducted and assist them to use the study results to identify country-specific reforms and to take action to improve public oversight of extractive industry revenues.
Contact Information
For further information, please contact:
Muthoni Kamuyu
Senior Program Assistant
Extractive Industries & HIV/AIDS
Southern & Eastern Africa
(202) 728-6348
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