Articles
CDD briefing paper on Governanace in Oil and Gas producing African countries
Several African nations have recently joined or are about to join the ranks of the continent’s Oil Producing Countries
(OPCs). This has raised hopes as well as anxieties aboutthe governance prospects of the new OPCs.
On one hand,it comes with the potential for the new OPCs to overcomeone of the perennial obstacles to their development, a weak revenue base. Indeed, average African OPC revenue hasincreased from $200 billion in 2002 to an estimated $500
billion in 2012, reflecting global price increases and strongcompetition among oil companies around the world over
the past 5 years. On the other hand, it carries the prospectof mis-governance that has afflicted many of the developing
world’s OPCs. The question “what is the governance recordof the traditional African OPCs?” is worth asking, at least,
for the sake of the new entrants such as Ghana. The paperdraws on data from the Ibrahim Index of African Governance
(IIAG) in an attempt to answer this question.
The Ibrahim Index, published by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by governments and non-state actors across 86 criteria. The four main categories of indicators used as proxies for the quality of the outputs and outcomes of governance include the following: Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development.
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Source: CDD briefing paper
