In 2021—the second year of NRGI's six-year strategy—resource-rich developing countries faced stark and unprecedented economic, governance and social justice challenges. The climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and dramatic changes in global energy markets all increased the importance of good governance. At the beginning of 2021 NRGI’s 77 staff leveraged their unique expertise, rigorous analysis and extensive partnerships to help citizens and officials in resource-rich developing countries navigate uncertain futures.
 

Further momentum came with the appointment of Suneeta Kaimal as NRGI’s president and CEO. She undertook a “listening tour” and learned from more than two hundred of NRGI's partners, board members, advisory council members and funders. Together they identified the strategic evolutions and pivots that will mark NRGI's future path, and honed approaches to delivering on its strategy and ensuring its organizational sustainability.
 

Faced with both new and longstanding resource governance challenges in 2021, NRGI staff deployed targeted and concrete programming, focused on using their skills and deepening their engagement where their expertise was most valuable. Supporting resource-rich countries to navigate the energy transition was a top priority; NRGI worked closely with partners to help fossil fuel- and mineral-rich countries to make sensible extractives sector policy, investment and governance choices.

 

In the resource-rich countries in which NRGI operates it convened thousands of partners and stakeholders, building alliances and growing its networks to include many with whom it has not traditionally engaged. At the global level NRGI continued to push for change with international influencers, informing and strengthening international governance standards.
 

This report highlights just some of the positive outcomes brought about by NRGI, and its partners, in 2021.