February 2021 News and Analysis from NRGI

News from NRGI
2 March 2021

Suneeta Kaimal is NRGI's New President and CEO
Earlier this week NRGI's governing board appointed Suneeta Kaimal as the organization's new president and chief executive officer. Learn more about Suneeta and her mandate from the board's announcement (also available in Spanish, Arabic and French).

Risky Bet: National Oil Companies in the Energy Transition

New NRGI research compares the investment plans of national oil companies with the actions needed to observe global climate change commitments. With the pace of energy transition uncertain, the authors of Risky Bet offer a warning to governments and state oil companies and urge them to re-examine their plans. (Summaries are available in Spanish and Arabic.)

Read the press release, or watch the launch event featuring the authors and Mohammed Amin Adam, Ivetta Gerasimchuk and Lourdes Melgar. (View presentation slides from the event here.)

Watch a video summary of the research:

Read commentary pieces by NRGI experts related to the findings:

Energy Transition Is the Future. National Oil Companies Are Betting on the Past. (Foreign Policy)
Ghana must heed energy transition risk in its oil plans (The Africa Report)
Apuestas arriesgadas: petróleo y transición energética en América Latina (La Silla Vacía)
Una apuesta arriesgada: Pemex y la transición energética (Animal Político)

Read coverage by media outlets including the Guardian, Reuters, Bloomberg and the Financial Times, or listen to BBC World Service's piece (starts at 36m30s).

Highlights

National Oil Companies and Energy Transition in the Middle East and North Africa
As part of the Risky Bet research launch, NRGI released a corresponding briefing on national oil companies in the MENA region. The briefing derives from in-depth research and interviews on the challenges and reform plans Saudi Aramco, Qatar Petroleum and Algeria’s Sonatrach, and draws out implications for other MENA state companies (also available in Arabic).

The Future of Sustainable Natural Resource Governance
Tomorrow (26 February), NRGI and ETH-NADEL will host an online discussion on the future of sustainable natural resource governance as part of the closing of the “Natural Resource Governance and Development: Policies and Practice” advanced course. The event is open to the public.

Help to Build the Future of Natural Resource Governance
Building on the dialogue with the Transparency and Accountability Initiative and the Leveraging Transparency to Reduce Corruption (LTRC) initiative on the future of resource governance, NRGI invites responses to this 10-minute survey by 4 March. NRGI president emeritus Daniel Kaufmann and LTRC partners will lead and share analysis of responses. (Read more about emerging findings in the new Brookings Institution blog post "Break Silos and Sharpen Pivots.")

Publications

Leveraging Extractive Industries to Address Ghana’s Fiscal Challenges: Lessons From the Pandemic
NRGI experts examine the Ghanaian government's measures to address the country's fiscal situation and offer policy recommendations for its debt management strategy.

How Can Anticorruption Actors Use EITI Reporting?
Corruption in the extractive industries is one of the biggest obstacles to natural resources contributing to sustainable development. In this report, NRGI offers insight on how anticorruption agencies can use the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative's current disclosures to identify corruption risks.

Blog posts

How Mozambique Could Strengthen its Proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund

In October 2020, Mozambique’s central bank published a proposal for establishing a new sovereign wealth fund. The decisions made now about the structure and rules of the fund will have major ramifications on the country’s economic future and the wellbeing of its citizens.

Ghana’s National Oil Company Shows the U.K. and Switzerland How Transparency Should Work
The pandemic and ever-present corruption risks reinforce the need for transparency in commodity trading. Ghana, as an oil producer, has modeled some commodity trading transparency practices; countries such as the U.K. and Switzerland, home to trading companies, should act too.

It’s Time to Talk: Sonatrach and the Energy Transition in Algeria
Algeria, the largest oil and gas producer in North Africa, is heavily dependent on hydrocarbons for exports and government revenues. Government officials and managers of state oil company Sonatrach should heed global shifts. (Also available in Arabic.)

NRGI Named Among Top Transparency and Governance Think Tanks for Sixth Consecutive Year
The survey-based rankings place NRGI alongside many of the transparency and good governance institutions with which it proudly partners both globally and in specific focus countries.

Que nous apprend le Rapport ITIE 2018 de la Guinée sur la gouvernance minière aujourd’hui?
This French-language post provides information about mining governance in Guinea based on the 2018 EITI report.

Events

Minerales estratégicos, cadenas de suministro y desafíos de gobernanza en los Andes
NRGI is hosting a series of Spanish-language webinars on the governance of critical minerals in Andean countries. The next is "Retos y brechas para la industrialización del litio y su inserción en las cadenas globales. Los casos de Bolivia y Chile" on 10 March. On 24 March: "La agenda de sociedad civil para las cadenas de suministro mineras responsables en los Andes."

Videos

Strategic Minerals, Supply Chains and Governance Challenges in the Andes

This video examines the challenges for mining governance in the Andean countries amid the global energy transition and increasing demand for minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt for the generation of renewable energy. (Also available in Spanish.)

The State of Gendered Extractive Governance
On 3 February, NRGI and the World Resources Institute hosted a webinar, part of a wider series, to present findings from the upcoming report The State of Gendered Extractive Governance. The research examines the origin and impact of extractive laws and policies that mention gender and women. The research is part of the Open Government Partnership’s Break the Roles campaign, which encourages governments to bring gender perspectives into open government. (Also available in Arabic and Spanish.)

La cadena de suministro del cobre y sus impactos territoriales en Perú