Is Sunshine the Best Disinfectant? Determining the Effectiveness of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)

摘要

Based on the discussion so far, it is easy for us to suggest that the EITI is not as successful as its advocates may want us to believe. Particularly judging from the fact that positive performance is only identifiable in the area of inflows of investment, it can make one wonder if the EITI actually has any influence on governance and development outcomes in resource-rich countries. To be sure, our regression analyses need to be interpreted with caution since they do not constitute rigid statistical tests. Moreover, our model is limited to the period 2000-2012 and might thus not be able to capture slow, more incremental improvements in governance and development outcomes over the longer term. This study therefore opens up promising prospects for further research into the effectiveness of the EITI that may involve longer time frames, multivariate statistical testing, and in-depth country case studies.Compliance with the EITI is no doubt going to be a perpetual challenge for companies; but it is certainly going to be a hurdle for many governments and civil society participants as well. In the first place, transparency alone is not the answer as there are many other aspects of resource governance that need to be factored into the equation for a holistic solution. This point questions the transformative potential of transparency, as other scholars have done. A counter-intuitive potential downside of transparency is worth noting at this juncture. The EITI can have a prophylactic effect on oil and gas development, since both governments and companies, knowing that they are being monitored, will significantly change their behavior. Development experts Ivar Kolstad and Arne Wiig explain that “a public sector that is to always keep the public informed on all details of its activities will not be very effective in pursuing its activities. In other words, if you keep a diary of everything you do, you won’t be doing much.”The EITI has the potential to make negotiations between governments and companies more complex and cumbersome, since parties involved in the process may be more cautious about exchanging information they know will make it into the public sphere. Ironically, transparency cannot only make it easier to detect corruption; it can also identify the relevant officials to approach for bribes and kickbacks. This critique is not meant to rubbish the efforts towards transparency in the extractive sectors because, as the 2014 EITI Progress Report indicates, transparency does matter. Nonetheless, our conclusion here is rather straightforward: Just as transparency cannot be seen as the magic bullet, it is one that is unable to penetrate armor. So is it almost impossible to think of the EITI as a panacea for good resource governance or perhaps sustainable development in resource-rich countries.Another concern is that the EITI came into being as one of the practical steps to guide resource-rich countries out of the “resource curse”. But it has become clear that the cure for the curse, if it actually exists in the way it has been popularized, is not easy to find. To showcase the complexity of this issue, scholars who propound the idea have identified several factors that can affect the extent of the curse including the ability of governments (institutions) to manage large resource revenues in a sustainable manner, the types of resources the country in question has, and the nature of rent seeking that occurs. Others have insisted that we assess the historical and present socio-political variables that have made some countries use resources for their benefit while others have failed at doing so. As multifaceted as the resource curse idea is, EITI has not served the discussion well through its simplistic focus on revenues and transparency. The cure box should have several elements the EITI is currently silent on, thereby enhancing the initiative’s potential to become transformative. Being entirely voluntary, it remains unclear if this desire to impact real change in the discussion of resource curse, transparency, accountability, and broad socio-economic development would be realized through the EITI.