Africa is fast becoming a key supplier of oil to the United States. In a decade, nearly a quarter of all oil supplies will come from the region. As this report argues, despite this “oil boom” ordinary Africans will see no improvements to their lives so long as revenues continue to flow into governments lacking in transparency and accountability. This report addresses two key questions: How can Africa’s oil boom contribute to relieving poverty? What policy changes should be implemented to promote the management and allocation of oil revenues in a way that will benefit ordinary Africans?

Op-ed by Director of Global Witness, Simon Taylor.

While oil, gas and minerals are by far the largest sources of state revenue for the world’s poorest nations, these resources, which should help fund development and sustainable economic growth, all too often turn out to be a curse, leading to increased poverty, child malnutrition and civil conflict.

Angola is sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer after Nigeria, with recent discoveries suggesting it could soon become the largest; this at a time when the 1999 UN Human Development Index (HDI) places Angola at 160 out of 174 countries, according to social indicators.

Revenue Transparency: A Priority for Good Governance and Energy Security

Across the globe, revenues from oil, gas and mining that should be funding sustainable economic development have been misappropriated and mismanaged. This Global Witness report considers five major examples of this problem: Kazakhstan, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nauru.

In these countries, governments do not provide even basic information about their revenues from natural resources. Nor do oil, mining and gas companies publish any information about payments made to governments.

In the 2008 Report on Revenue Transparency of Oil and Gas Companies, Transparency International (TI) evaluates 42 leading oil and gas companies on their current policies, management systems and performance in areas relevant to revenue transparency in their upstream operations.

Conference on the Growing Importance of African Oil, Co-Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the National Intelligence Council, held at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC

On 28 May 2008, FRIDE facilitated a meeting of members of the Commission for International Cooperation of the Spanish Parliament (Congreso de Diputados) with representatives of the Board of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the CSO platform Publish What You Pay (PWYP).

The most important international initiative aimed at shedding light on the oil industry’s often murky finances faces a crucial test next month when several African countries may be forced to leave due to their low governance standards.

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