Enhancing the governance of Africa’s oil sector

Empirical studies have shown that oil-dependent countries are more likely to suffer from civil wars motivated by ‘grievances’ or ‘greed’ — and this is particularly true for states in sub-Saharan Africa.

This paper evaluates several important international governance initiatives in the African oil sector, including the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Publish What You Pay, Transparency International and Global Witness.  What are the lessons we can learn from their successes and failures? Is there really a resource curse? Why does it hit some countries harder than others? Case studies of eight African oil-rent-dependent states (Angola, Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria and Sudan) are tabulated for comparative analysis. These are followed by several two variable correlations of oil-rent dependency (independent variable), which analyse poverty, corruption, governance and violence (dependent variables). In conclusion, various moral lessons are drawn concerning the present-day realities of the oil-governance initiatives.