Suchergebnisse

Azerbaijan, like many resource-rich countries, decided to set up a sovereign wealth fund in order to avoid income volatility, to achieve intergenerational equity and to transform resource wealth into more productive assets. Azerbaijan established the State Oil Fund of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAZ) in late 1999 to accumulate income from hydrocarbon exports. SOFAZ has gradually become the leading part of the country's public finance system. Azerbaijan was the first country to fulfill all requirements of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international agreement to implement global standards of transparency in the resource extracting sectors. However, SOFAZ's contribution to an effective resource revenue management and long-run economic development is still questionable: transparency applies only to the income side of Azerbaijan's oil fund while the expenditure side remains opaque. Unlimited and unconditional transfers from SOFAZ to the state budget have threatened fiscal sustainability and the overall macroeconomic equilibrium.

This paper examines the development of the Saudi cities of Jubail and Yanbu in the aftermath of the 1973 OPEC embargo. Developed as a means of shifting away from pure resource extraction and towards value-added technology sectors, the Saudi government aspired to build up the cities as petrochemical production hubs and investment "growth-poles." It considers the ways in which architecture, landscape, and environment became tools of petro-capital valorization. More specifically, it looks at how the master planning efforts of the construction conglomerate Bechtel and the late modern architectural firm TAC looked towards the quality and composition of the earth as their object of management, study, and design. Such a terrestrial vision of an extractive enterprise would seem to be paradoxical, but the paper ultimately shows how an emergent discourse of ecological systems thinking that legitimated the diffusion of energy and chemicals. This program therefore depended upon a kind of interdisciplinary convergence between architects, engineers, oilmen, scientists, and officials, who collectively manipulated these "natural" resources as the preliminary activity of Jubail and Yanbu's urban administration. These efforts exhibited a scalar flexibility -- from the micrological to the territorial -- that show the labile modalities of extractive activity, as well as a planning regime that adjusted itself to the vagaries of oil's global political economy. The demand to both protect the environment from, and cultivate it with the cities' attendant petrochemical infrastructure demonstrated a melding of technology and nature otherwise overlooked in histories of oil and architecture.

This paper examines a broad range of opportunities for addressing the pressing human development needs of low-income countries by using new oil, gas, and mineral discoveries. It assesses how much of an impact can be made on the funding gaps for health and education by new oil and gas revenues, and what other uses of those revenues are likely to arise. The paper argues that there is a strong case for investing natural resources revenues in social sectors, as they provide an opportunity to help to close the financing gaps in the African countries examined. However, the paper also highlights that the political economy risks of this revenue stream are higher than for other types of revenues. Finally, it illustrates how a simple diagnostic framework can be used to help to guide social sector investment decisions in the light of new natural resources revenues.

International audience ; The principle of extractive transparency is an emerging obligation in contemporary extractive law, aiming at good governance in the exploitation of mineral and oil resources through, in particular, the requirements of extractive disclosure and extractive traceability. Originally derived from the soft law legitimized by international practice, the principle has gained in importance by its consecration in European positive law, giving a binding and transnational character to the obligation. The extractive sector making the subject of scandals with transnational security impulses (looting of nature, underdevelopment and social insecurity, corruption and money laundering, armed conflicts, terrorism, immigration, environmental and human crimes), the European Union policies aiming at monitoring this sector are tools for reducing transnational insecurity. ; Le principe de transparence extractive est une obligation en émergence dans le droit extractif contemporain, visant la bonne gouvernance dans l'exploitation des ressources minières, pétrolières et gazières à travers notamment, les exigences de divulgation extractive et de traçabilité extractive. À l'origine issu de la soft law légitimée par la pratique internationale, le principe a gagné en importance par sa consécration en droit positif européen, donnant un caractère contraignant et transnational à l'obligation. Le secteur des industries extractives faisant l'objet de scandales aux élans sécuritaires transnationaux (pillage de la nature, sous-développement et insécurité sociale, corruption et blanchiment d'argent, conflits armés, terrorisme, immigration, crimes environnementaux et humains), les politiques de l'Union européenne visant la surveillance de ce secteur constituent des outils pour réduire l'insécurité transnationale.

International audience ; The principle of extractive transparency is an emerging obligation in contemporary extractive law, aiming at good governance in the exploitation of mineral and oil resources through, in particular, the requirements of extractive disclosure and extractive traceability. Originally derived from the soft law legitimized by international practice, the principle has gained in importance by its consecration in European positive law, giving a binding and transnational character to the obligation. The extractive sector making the subject of scandals with transnational security impulses (looting of nature, underdevelopment and social insecurity, corruption and money laundering, armed conflicts, terrorism, immigration, environmental and human crimes), the European Union policies aiming at monitoring this sector are tools for reducing transnational insecurity. ; Le principe de transparence extractive est une obligation en émergence dans le droit extractif contemporain, visant la bonne gouvernance dans l'exploitation des ressources minières, pétrolières et gazières à travers notamment, les exigences de divulgation extractive et de traçabilité extractive. À l'origine issu de la soft law légitimée par la pratique internationale, le principe a gagné en importance par sa consécration en droit positif européen, donnant un caractère contraignant et transnational à l'obligation. Le secteur des industries extractives faisant l'objet de scandales aux élans sécuritaires transnationaux (pillage de la nature, sous-développement et insécurité sociale, corruption et blanchiment d'argent, conflits armés, terrorisme, immigration, crimes environnementaux et humains), les politiques de l'Union européenne visant la surveillance de ce secteur constituent des outils pour réduire l'insécurité transnationale.

A number of countries have recently discovered and are developing oil and gas reserves. Policy makers in such countries are anxious to obtain the greatest benefits for their economies from the extraction of these exhaustible resources by designing appropriate policies to achieve desired goals. One important theme of such policies is the so-called local content created by the sector-the extent to which the output of the extractive industry sector generates further benefits to the economy beyond the direct contribution of its value-added, through its links to other sectors. While local content policies have the potential to stimulate broad-based economic development, their application in petroleum-rich countries has achieved mixed results. This paper describes the policies and practices meant to foster the development of economic linkages from the petroleum sector, as adopted by a number of petroleum-producing countries both in and outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Examples of policy objectives, implementation tools, and reporting metrics are provided to derive lessons of wider applicability. The paper presents various conclusions for policy makers about the design of local content policies.

Fil: Zurita, Juan Ignacio. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina. ; This paper examines the process of negotiation between two candidates vying for the executive office in a province of Argentina and an oil union there that plays a crucial role in the electoral process. It studies the various possible outcomes when each candidate negotiates with the union for its support. The basic theme that emerges from this analysis is that institutional frameworks, which define term limits, and the existence of discretional funds, are significant influences in the union's decision. Yet it also shows the dynamics of political survival in provinces highly dependent on the royalties generated by extractive activities, and in which most employees are unionized and follow their union leader's directives. ; Tommasi, Mariano

This article contrasts the effects of state-controlled oil revenues and privately controlled labor remittances on institutional development, state capacity, and businessgovernment relations in Saudi Arabia and the Yemen Arab Republic. These two countries represent extreme cases of dependence on external capital in deeply divided societies presided over by fragile, emerging bureaucracies. By tracing the two cases through a pattern of economic boom (1973-83) and recession (1983-87), the study demonstrates that the type, volume, and control of capital inflows decisively influence the relative development of the bureaucracy's extractive, distributive, and regulatory capacities and affect the ability of the state to respond to economic crisis. In both cases, external capital inflows precipitated the decline of extractive institutions. However, oil revenues and labor remittances had divergent effects on businessgovernment relations, and this circumscribed the state's ability to implement austerity programs during the recession. During the crisis, the Saudi government's efforts to cut subsidies to the private sector and to implement extractive policies were blocked by the state-sponsored merchant class. In contrast, the Yemeni government instituted a thoroughgoing austerity package that targeted the independent merchant class. In both cases, external capital inflows did not augment the efficacy of those that controlled them. These paradoxical outcomes are explained by tracing the different effects of oil revenues and labor remittances on the distribution of economic opportunity in the public and private sectors and the resulting effects on the regional, tribal, and sectarian composition of the bureaucracy and the commercial class.

This study uses club theory to describe the incentives of extractive industry MNCs to support the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a multi-stakeholder promoted voluntary social program (VSP) aimed at creating national legislation to make the royalty payments received by governments from mining and oil and gas companies more transparent to the public. We characterize the EITI as a VSP that lacks stringent standards and that has a moderate to high level of enforcement through the national governments that have adopted its principles. According to club theory, VSPs with these characteristics produce only a low to medium level of club benefits, in this case "social branding," for member firms. Noting that over 60 MNCs have signed on to the EITI as of April 2012, we argue that VSPs offering low to medium club benefits should be most attractive to MNCs from countries with long arm disclosure laws, to MNCs lacking relationships with NGOs seeking inexpensive CSR, to MNCs relying upon financing from institutional and social investors, to MNCs attempting to differentiate themselves from competitors on social criteria, and to MNCs with broad stakeholder-focused top managers. We also describe the implications for MNCs if the EITI were to include a more stringent set of social requirements.

THE WORLD POLITICAL ECONOMY WAS ALTERED BY THE OIL SHOCK OF 1973 AND BY SUBSEQUENT CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL OIL INDUSTRY. THE DOMESTIC POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS OF CONSUMING NATIONS WERE ALSO HIT BY THESE SHOCK WAVES. EVENTUALLY, EVEN THE OIL-PRODUCING STATES THEMSELVES FOUND THAT HUGH OIL REVENUES, WHICH AT FIRST HAD SEEMED THE ANSWER TO THEIR MATERIAL DREAMS, STIMULATED VOLATILE AND DANGEROUS POLITICAL FORCES. THUS, EDITH PENROSE NOTED IN 1976 THAT: THE SUDDEN FLOW OF NEW RICHES IS CREATING VERY SERIOUS PROBLEMS, ALBEIT OF A DIFFERENT SORT, FOR THE OIL EXPORTING COUNTRIES AS WELL. OIL REVENUES FROM FOREIGNERS ARE NOTHING MORE OR LESS THAN CLAIMS ON FOREIGN GOODS AND SERVICES, AND AS GOVERNMENTS TRY TO SPEND THEIR REVENUE AND TO ABSORB THE ENORMOUSLY INCREASED FLOW OF IMPORTS, THEIR MONETARY SYSTEMS BECOME STRAINED BY INFLATION, THEIR PORTS BECOME CHOKED, THEIR TRANSPORT SYSTEMS CONGESTED, THEIR LABOR MARKETS DISTORTED, THEIR HOUSING PROBLEMS INTENSIFIED AND THEIR BUREAUCRACY OVERLOADED AND INCREASINGLY SUBJECT TO THE TEMPTATION OF ILLEGITIMATE REWARDS.1 THESE PROBLEMS BECAME NOTORIOUS IN 1979 WHEN THE GOVERNMENT OF IRAN COLLAPSED BEFORE THIS MULTITUDE OF DIFFICULTIES AND THE ZEAL OF ISLAMIC REACTION. AT THE SAME TIME THAT THE SHAH WAS LOSING HIS GRIP ON POWER, HOWEVER, ELECTIONS IN ANOTHER OIL-RICH STATE ESTABLISHED A NEW FEDERAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT BASED ON PLURALIST THOUGHT AND WESTERN INSTITUTIONS. FACED WITH THE SAME PROBLEMS OF RAPID GROWTH DESCRIBED BY PPY: 1984

The government of the Citizen Revolution adopted measures to nationalize oil resources, generating higher revenues, but at the same time, affecting the democratic controls of the sector, especially accountability. The question posed is: Why this nationalization of resources generated a deficit in the rendering of accounts? In order to achieve this nationalization, the oil policy was redesigned, based on regulatory and institutional reforms, that caused the deficit. As an analytical framework, the theories of extractive nationalism are approached and a method that allows to determine the causes of the proposed deficit. Tt is concluded that the reconfiguration of the policy and the introduction of new instruments affected the democratic controls of the sector. ; El gobierno de la Revolución Ciudadana adoptó medidas para nacionalizar el petróleo, lo que generó mayores ingresos, pero, a la vez, afectó los controles democráticos del sector, en especial, la rendición de cuentas. Se plantea la pregunta: ¿Por qué la nacionalización de recursos generó un déficit en la rendición de cuentas? Se establece que, para lograr dicha nacionalización, se rediseñó la política petrolera –normas e instituciones– que provocaron el déficit. Se abordan las teorías del nacionalismo extractivo, y el diseño de políticas e instrumentos que permitan determinar las causas del déficit. Se concluye que la reconfiguración de la política y la introducción de nuevos instrumentos afectaron los controles democráticos del sector. ; O governo da Revolução Cidadã adotó medidas para nacionalizar os recursos petrolíferos, gerando receitas mais elevadas, mas, afetando os controles democráticos do setor, especialmente a prestação de contas. Por que essa nacionalização de recursos gerou um déficit na prestação de contas?, para alcançar essa nacionalização, a política petroleira foi redesenhada, com base em reformas regulatórias e institucionais que causaram o déficit. Como um quadro analítico, as teorias do nacionalismo extrativo são abordadas juntamente ...

We consider the impacts of the development of oil resources (exploration and extraction) on the lives and livelihoods of people living in the Albertine Graben region of Uganda. These impacts are both positive and negative and include: employment opportunities; infrastructure development; project induced displacement and resettlement; in-migration and influx; inflation; reduction of food security; restrictions on access to fishing, firewood and herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes; inadequate compensation; land grabbing; prostitution; environmental degradation; annoyance and inconvenience; fear and anxiety; and changes to their communities, livelihoods and landscape. In-depth interviews were carried out with key informants, including with leaders at the village, parish, sub-county, and district levels in Uganda. Focus group discussions and participant observation were also used. We argue that there is need for all stakeholders – especially the government of Uganda, oil companies, the local communities, the Bunyoro Kitara Kingdom, and civil society organisations – to collaborate in order to address the deficiencies in the development of oil resources and the region, and to create the conditions needed to avoid the resource curse and associated Dutch disease and Nigerian disease, and instead to achieve a social licence to operate for oil development in the region.