This report focuses on the paradoxical links between natural resource wealth and child poverty in developing countries, including Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. It includes recommendations for governments, companies, shareholders, donors and civil society on how to enhance transparency over company payments and government revenues, which Save the Children UK believes to be integral to a more accountable system for the management of such revenues that is in the best interests of children.

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.

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.

Save The Children

Save the Children is the UK’s leading international children’s charity, working to create a better future for children. In a world where children are denied basic human rights, we champion the right of all children to a happy, healthy and secure childhood. We put the reality of children’s lives at the heart of everything we do.

London/Berlin – A majority of leading oil and gas companies are far from transparent when it comes to the payments they make to resource-rich countries, leaving the door open to corruption and hampering efforts to fight poverty, according to a report published today by Transparency International (TI).

London – In the wake of a recent report published by Transparency International [1], showing that leading oil and gas companies should be doing more to fight corruption and poverty in resource-rich countries, Publish What You Pay [2] calls on companies to publicly disclose how much money they pay to governments for the right to extract.