Transparency in Context & in Development: Lessons Governance Experiments Stacy D. VanDeveer Fellow, Transatlantic Academy & Associate Professor, University of New Hampshire

 Overlapping Governance Challenges at multiple levels:  Unprecedented ecological change/degradation,  ongoing human exploitation, series of relationships to violent conflict  Poverty alleviation lagging  Growing issue-specific global activism  Resource Curse dynamics, perceptions and debates  EX: over 50 “resource rich” countries, containing 2/3 of global poor Making Sense of the Politics of Global Consumption

 Has multiple dimensions political debate  Physical/geological  Economic (value chain, price volatility, etc.)  Political  Strategic/security/defense  social ramifications of price volatility  Civil local/regional violence (threat multiplier)  Equity/humanitarian (poverty alleviation, inequality, labor/human rights, & host of social justice issues)  MOST resources are not physically scarce/rare  Most scarcity is governance/institutionally related “Scarcity”: Means what? For whom?

 Supply security & reliability  Transparency (financial, contractual, informational, geographic, price, procedural, govt decisions…)  Human Rights & Gender inequality  Labor rights & Safety  Community Poverty  Environmental/Ecological degradation  Relationships to Violent Conflict (object, cause, funder, instrument of oppression…)  Little systematic demand side management or broad based recycling & reuse  Scale – how much can ecosystems and societies bear? Extractive Industries/Raw Materials Governance Challenges: A Daunting List

 Transparency, Accountability and Public Involvement  Improved Fiscal and Monetary Policy  Natural Resource Funds/Sovereign Wealth Funds  Economic Diversification  Direct Distribution  Privatization  Draws on Weinthal & Luong work Combatting “Curses”

Governance Experiments: Non-State and State Led Non-State Led  Awareness & Education  Certification Systems and Labeling Schemes  Corporate/sectoral governance initiatives  Ethical consumption /purchasing movements  Corporate Social Responsibility State Led  National/EU Regulation  Effective International Standards  Subsidies Adjustment  Externalities Pricing/taxation  Building Governing Capacities

 Policy experiments: any level of scale -- public, private & Civil society sectors  Networks, Pathways, the Diffusion of Political Institutions & Theoretical Pluralism (w/H. Selin)  Strategic demonstration  Market expansion & pricing  Policy diffusion and learning  Norm creation & promulgation  PoliSci 101: Institutions Develop Constituencies Why Leaders, Experimentation and Innovation Matter (Sometimes)

 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)  One of MANY transparency initiatives  Kimberley Process (Diamonds)  Commodity specific public awareness campaigns (coltan, gold, silver, gemstones)  slogans, press coverage, boycotts, consumer exposure …  ICMM – Int’l Council on Mining and Materials  Natural Resource Charter  Dodd-Frank  EU Transparency Directive efforts  UNEP International Resource Panel Ongoing Experiments: Some Examples

 EITI Development (2002… )  Expanding participation, standards and procedures review, growing set stakeholder reform ideas, World Bank push  Transparency improved, acct & public part. likely not  Dodd-Frank (2010- )  Broad disclosure requirements for public companies  Specific push on “conflict minerals”  EU Transparency Directive ( )  Explicit EITI link, mandatory reporting, adding forestry  ICMM ( )  Lots of learning, little evidence/assessment of global impact Transparency: developments, limits and context

Levers & Lessons to Explore  Leveraging market access & size (US, EU & China)  Information provision & Transparency  Financial flows (public-private)  Public sector spending, accounting, management  Production and processing info  Capacity Building: public involvement, civil society, public sector, small/medium businesses  Standardization – products, processes  Networked activists across borders (PWYP, Global Witness)  Baptists & bootlegger coalitions (Transatlantic transparency pol)  National/state emulation & learning  DEBATING the ROLE OF THE STATE

THANK YOU