Financial Transparency Coalition

International oil companies such as the U.S. giant Chevron are beginning exploration off of Liberia’s coastline. However, this new research by Global Witness and Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI)¹ suggests that while Liberia has come a long way from the devastating set of resource-financed civil wars that claimed the lives of 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003, serious governance problems persist, and the warning signs for the emerging oil sector are stark. Curse or Cure? How oil can boost or break Liberia’s post-war recovery shows that even before a discovery is made, there are deep-seated problems in Liberia’s oil sector: government officials and at least one company...

LONDON/MONROVIA – Far-reaching reforms of Liberia’s oil sector are urgently needed if its population is to benefit from future oil discoveries, says a report released today by Global Witness (1) and the Liberian Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI) (2). As the country heads to the polls in October, and with major oil companies such as US giant Chevron trying to find oil in Liberia, these reforms must be a priority for any new government.

In college we studied the so-called “resource curse:” the tragic observation that countries well-endowed with natural resources tend to have slower economic growth and poorer development than those without. I remember, very clearly, that we studied this concept as though it were a truism—a common and (mostly) irreversible reality that just was. This theory has, in fact, been demonstrated very strongly in quantitative terms. According to an analysis of developing countries by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner, the more an economy relies on mineral wealth, the lower its growth rate. Of course, in my classes, we also studied the drivers...

LONDON – Transparency of Libya’s oil wealth must be a key priority of Thursday’s negotiations over the country’s future, said Global Witness today. The meeting, which is to be co-chaired by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and France’s President, Nicholas Sarkozy, could mark a crucial step along the path to future peace and prosperity in Libya.