Knowledge and Transparency Go​ Hand in Hand - Resource Governance

In their influential book, “Escap­ing the Resource Curse” 1 , Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz and his colleagues argue there is clear evidence that improved transpar­ency in the petroleum sector leads to improved economic outcomes for a country.

The arguments for transparency, they say, range from “impacts that it might have on competition between firms”, “enhanced efficiency of negotiat­ing processes”, the credibility of a government’s negotiating position”, “the stability of a politi­cal environment”, “the attitudes of populations toward govern­ments”, and “the ability of basic mechanisms of accountability”.

The authors go on to consider how transparency can be im­proved. Recognizing that the challenges are complex, they point out that a first step is to determine which oil & gas docu­ments should be made public, since there is a legitimate place for confidentiality in commercial relations. They therefore pro­pose that governments adopt a “transparency principle”. El­ements of such a principle can include requirements to make payments and contracts public, or to post information on finan­cial transactions on government websites. For whole publication