Empowering and Incentivizing Reformers

Focusing on supporting “reformers” - those with a genuine commitment to reforms - is a way of trying to start on auspicious footing by targeting those with an existing interest in seeing good governance of extractive industries take root. While providing resources to bolster the technical capacity of these actors will be a critical aspect of their prospects for success, another is helping them to more effectively interact with their political contexts. Indeed, for the potential of reformers to drive and sustain relevant policy and institutional changes to be realized, the incentive and power dynamics that can impede these actors must be better understood and more effectively addressed.  CCSI has been carrying out research on some of the main political challenges facing actors within governments committed to advancing governance reforms for the extractive industries in their countries and developing ideas for how these might be addressed more effectively.

To read some of the highlights of this work, please see the think piece, Unlocking the Power of Reformers to Achieve Better Progress on Extractives Governance. Key findings are also summarized in this presentation.

To inform our research, ground-truth our findings and support uptake of some of the key ideas coming out of this work, CCSI convened two meetings in 2021:

June 8, 2021 - "The political obstacles facing extractives governance reformers and what global actors can do to help," a small, closed-door convening of current and former government officials committed to advancing improved governance of their respective countries' extractive industries. In a frank discussion of the major political obstacles to reform they faced, participants also shared reflections on how external actors might support others in such positions to more effectively address obstacles and build political support for more impactful reforms efforts.

October 7, 2021 - "Empowering reformers to improve results: practical approaches," a convening of global practitioners from development banks, bilateral donor agencies, and INGOs as well as past and present government officials. Discussion focused on trying to engage global actors on some of the ideas emerging from CCSI's research and the first meeting, particularly in the context of "windows of opportunity." The main objective was for participants to leave the discussions with a sense of why it may be valuable to focus on addressing the specific political needs of reformers through their own work and armed with specific strategies to do so.

For reflections from the second meeting, and how it builds on their analysis of How Global Actors Can Better Support Anticorruption Reformers, see the guest blog by Florencia Guerzovich, Soledad Gattoni, and Dave Algoso, Putting anticorruption reformers' needs back in the center of international support: Windows of opportunity, Politics and the extractive sector.