December 2017 News and Analysis from NRGI

News from NRGI
19 December 2017

Highlights

Legislative Attack on U.S. Oil and Mining Transparency and Anticorruption Law
NRGI condemns the 13 December vote in the House Financial Services Committee to proceed with a bill that would repeal Dodd-Frank Section 1504, a landmark U.S. transparency and anticorruption law requiring oil and mining companies to disclose payments to governments around the world for the right to extract natural resources.

Video: Civil Society Must Speak Truth to Power to Ensure Better Resource Governance

Civil society actors fighting for better resource governance must engage with reformers in government and business and "speak truth to power” with those parties hampering progress, NRGI president and CEO Daniel Kaufmann tells RAW Talks.

NRGI’s Top 10 Blog Posts in 2017
The most-read post of 2017 was a look at opacity in Nigeria oil sale contracts from NRGI senior governance officer Aaron Sayne. Readers this year were keen on windows into macroeconomic crises in Venezuela and Mongolia, longer-form analyses using data from the new Resource Governance Index, and news of concrete progress on payment-to-government data from major oil and gas companies, among other topics.

A Year-End Message From Daniel Kaufmann
Kaufmann released a year-end message to the organization's friends and partners. Get his take on a turbulent year for resource governance, the progress made in 2017, and the gains he foresees in 2018.

Natural Resources for Sustainable Development: The Fundamentals of Oil, Gas, and Mining Governance
This free online course from NRGI, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, the SDG Academy and the World Bank gives students an understanding of the key challenges and opportunities that come with managing extractive industry investments for sustainable development. The course launches February 5.

Publications

Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Revenues: Insights from New Company Disclosures

Newly released payments-to-governments reports provide timely and informative data on the payments mining and oil and gas companies make to government entities. Focusing on Nigeria, this briefing examines the data available in such reports and demonstrates how, in a country context, citizens can use such data.

Local Level Agreements in Mongolia’s Resource Sector: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward
Formal agreements between resource companies and subnational or local level stakeholders affected by company projects are becoming an important mechanism for increasing benefits for local communities and minimizing or avoiding conflicts in many countries. This policy paper (also in Mongolian) assesses Mongolia’s experience with local-level agreements to date.

Video

Twelve Red Flags: Corruption Risks in the Award of Extractive Sector Licenses and Contracts

NRGI advisor Alexandra Gillies presented the findings of a report she co-authored focused on 12 red flags of corruption in extractive sector license and contract awards, with real-world illustrations for each, at the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in Beirut.

Gobernanza Extractiva en América Latina: Situación y Desafíos (Seminario Regional)

Blog

Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana Report Highlights Peru Mining Sector Challenges
This Spanish-language report from Peruvian civil society organization Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana explains the main challenges of Peru’s mining sector. It provides an assessment of what happened to that sector in 2016, presenting illuminating statistics on production, investment, value of extraction, taxes and royalties, among others. It also discusses critical issues such as economic diversification and the environmental impacts of extractive industries.

Recomendaciones para que las extractivas contribuyan más a la reducción de la pobreza y desigualdad a nivel local