Necessary but not sufficient: anti-corruption and transparency legislation

Abstract

Transparency and the control of corruption have moved far up on the world’s development agenda over the past 10 to 15 years. There are few areas where these objectives are more important than in the management of natural resource wealth. This is especially true in the resource-rich countries of the developing world. Resource wealth has enormous potential to lift these societies out of poverty and put them on a path to sustainable development and prosperity. Yet in far too many countries the opposite is observed: slow economic growth relative to their non-resource-rich peers; poor performance against human development indicators; and economic and social instability or even violent conflict. This phenomenon, known as the ‘Resource Curse’ or ‘Paradox of Plenty’ is global, but it is nowhere more pronounced than in Sub-Saharan Africa.1 The arrival of mineral or petroleum wealth is almost certainly not the sole contributing factor to the Resource Curse. Weak governance and weak institutions may, and often do, precede it, but there is ample evidence that causality runs in both directions and that resource wealth can seriously exacerbate a country’s vulnerability to the bad practices.