• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • ECC Platform

    Transparency, Good Governance, and Natural Resource Management: An Interview With Peter Eigen

    April 30, 2014 By Wilson Center Staff

    The original version of this article appeared on the Environment, Conflict, and Cooperation (ECC) Platform.

    The governance challenges of natural resource extraction are enormous. What can be done to improve natural resource governance? ECC’s Stephan Wolters talked to Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International and chair of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) from 2006 to 2011.

    As a leading expert on the challenges of corruption, he provides exciting insights and evaluates success and failure of various approaches, including EITI in a six-part exclusive video interview series:

    Peter Eigen, why are transparency and accountability so important for natural resource management in particular?

    We found at Transparency International that natural resource development is particularly vulnerable to corruption, and this has a number of reasons. First of all, the so-called “resource curse” has a very strong macroeconomic component called “Dutch disease”: a pervasive mining or gas sector can impede development in other sectors of the economy. Apart from this, there is a tremendous temptation which comes from the immense sums involved for both investors and host governments. The temptation for decision-makers in the host country to accept payments for themselves is huge, in particular in countries where you have relatively fragile governments. The investors, on the other hand, want to get an enabling environment with little interference by the government. Extractive industries involve complex investments. Therefore it is very hard for the people or even for the members of parliament in the country to fully understand what is a just and fair deal. These are exactly the elements that tend to lead to grand corruption. This is why we at Transparency International found very soon that if you want to make a difference there, you need some very special tools, so we developed them.

    Continue reading on the ECC Platform.

    Video Credit: Interview with Peter Eigen, courtesy of Stephan Wolters/ECC Platform.

    Topics: Africa, Australia, Canada, China, democracy and governance, development, economics, environment, Europe, foreign policy, Germany, minerals, natural gas, natural resources, Nigeria, security, U.S., video

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: "Feminism materializes through investment in human capital and caregiving sectors of the economy...
  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: People who refuse to acknowledge patriarchy are often the ones who benefit from it. So please, say...
  • Water desalination pipes A Tale of Two Coastlines: Desalination in China and California
    Dr S Sundaramoorthy: It is all fine as theory. What about the energy cost? Arabian Gulf has the money from its own oil....

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000