Skip to main content
  • News
  • Events
  • Blog
  • Search

Natural Resource Governance Institute

  • Topics
    Beneficial ownership
    Economic diversification
    Mandatory payment disclosure
    Revenue sharing
    Civic space
    Energy transition
    Measurement of environmental and social impacts
    Sovereign wealth funds
    Commodity prices
    Global initiatives
    Measurement of governance
    State-owned enterprises
    Contract transparency and monitoring
    Legislation and regulation
    Open data
    Subnational governance
    Coronavirus
    Licensing and negotiation
    Revenue management
    Tax policy and revenue collection
    Corruption
  • Approach
    • Stakeholders
      • Civil society actors
      • Government officials
      • Journalists and media
      • Parliaments and political parties
      • Private sector
    • Natural Resource Charter
    • Regional knowledge hubs
  • Countries
    NRGI Priority Countries
    Colombia
    Guinea
    Myanmar
    Tanzania
    Dem. Rep. of Congo
    Mexico
    Nigeria
    Tunisia
    Ghana
    Mongolia
    Peru
    Uganda
    OTHER COUNTRIES
  • Learning
    • Training
      • Residential training courses
        • Advanced
        • Executive
        • Anglophone Africa
        • Francophone Africa
        • Asia-Pacific
        • Eurasia
        • Latin America
        • Middle East and North Africa
      • Online training courses
        • Massive open online course (MOOC)
        • Interactive course: Petronia
      • Trainers' modules
        • (empty)
    • Primers
    • Glossary
  • Analysis & Tools
    • Publications
    • Tools
    • Economic models
  • About Us
    • What we do
      • 2020-2025 Strategy
      • Country prioritization
    • NRGI impact
    • Board of Directors
    • Advisory Council
    • Leadership team
    • Experts and staff
    • Careers and opportunities
    • Contact us
    • Financials
    • Grant-making
    • Privacy policy
  • News
  • Events
  • Blog

You are here

  1. Home
  2. Blog

International Financial Institutions Must Stand Up for Civic Freedoms

30 January 2019
Author
Asmara Klein
Topics
Civic space
Countries
Azerbaijan, Equatorial Guinea, Niger
Stakeholders
Civil society actors, Journalists and media
Social Sharing
When Alfredo Okenve, a well-known human rights and transparency activist in Equatorial Guinea, began the drive to his family home in Bata on the evening of October 27, he couldn’t have known that he would be attacked and left for dead a few hours later.
 
A relentless advocate for the fair use of his country’s oil wealth, Alfredo had grown accustomed to various forms of harassment over the years, from losing his post at Equatorial Guinea’s National University in 2010 to being detained for several weeks in April 2017.
 
Yet the most recent intimidation, during which he says he was severely beaten and stabbed by two armed plainclothes security officers, was unprecedented in its brutality and has been firmly condemned by prominent human rights organizations. A few months before the attack, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had released a report strongly recommending that authorities in Equatorial Guinea join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the very same initiative that Alfredo has helped promote for many years. Yet those international financial institutions (IFIs) that claim to share Alfredo’s drive for greater transparency and accountability in Equatorial Guinea’s hydrocarbon sector have remained surprisingly silent about the attack.
 
Why doesn’t the IMF speak up when those who defend its agenda are violently silenced?
 
The IMF, like other international financial institutions and development banks, is a major source of financial and technical support for developing countries. Giving out billions of dollars in loans and other types of financial support every year, it wields significant influence over economic policies in many countries. This is particularly true for resource-rich developing countries, where volatile commodity prices often cause financial instability and difficulties to repay lingering debt. With this formidable influence on economies, the IMF and other IFIs could be powerful agents of change by linking their regard for values like civic space and free debate of fiscal policy to their decision making. But they rarely do.
 
Alfredo’s story is just one of many in which savvy IFI intervention could help make a difference and reverse IFIs’ poor historical record in upholding civic freedoms when applying “conditionality” (the terms under which financial assistance will be granted). This is true even when IFIs and local civil society don’t have overlapping objectives, as was recently the case in Niger. As demonstrations against Niger’s 2018 finance law (which the IMF had helped draft) gained increasing support, Nigerien authorities employed stalling tactics to shut down the peaceful protests. Two dozen civil society leaders who expressed strong concerns over the law’s potentially adverse consequences and risk of increased corruption were arrested on spurious charges in March 2018, eventually resulting in 121 distressing days behind bars for activists, including Ali Idrissa, who stood up to their government to demand greater accountability of public finances.  
 
Meanwhile, IMF officials congratulated the government for the adoption of the new finance law during a country visit in April. Then, in June, the IMF board approved a USD 20 million disbursement to Niger, acknowledging fiscal improvements through the finance law and ignoring the country’s suspension from EITI over deterioration in civil society freedoms. Yet, effective citizen participation and open debate are indispensable to sound public finances. Therefore, looking the other way when governments repress their critics might seem comfortable at first but it falls short of the IMF’s stated objective to advance greater transparency and accountability in Niger’s finances. Fund officials could instead have called on the Nigerien Ministry of Finance and Nigerien parliamentarians to engage in an open dialogue with civil society actors.
 
Another example: In 2017 several IFIs, including the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), failed to follow their own rules when they agreed to provide the Azerbaijani government billions in loans despite the country’s suspension from EITI following an unprecedented crackdown on critical voices.
 
These cases show that, while IFI officials say they want accountability and diversified, efficient economies, they turn a blind eye to abuses against civil society that undermine social, political and economic stability. At a time when democratic values are on the back foot with governments around the world feeling empowered to muzzle those questioning their actions – a nefarious phenomenon known as “shrinking civic space” — IFIs should take action and use the tools at their disposal to protect local transparency activists. Even a seemingly technocratic initiative like the EITI has acknowledged the linkage between sound governance of extractive issues and broader civil society freedoms when it adopted the Civil Society Protocol to benchmark effective civil society participation in the extractive sector. IFIs must improve their engagement on this linkage too if they want to secure long-term prosperity. Developing their own tools and frameworks to measure civic space and effectively engage with local civil society actors would be an excellent start.   
 
The IMF has already taken a small first step toward a change of course in Equatorial Guinea by recommending that the government there apply to EITI as a pre-condition for a loan that will shore up its finances. This should however not be reduced to a mere tick-the-box exercise. Instead, the IMF should stand firm in its expectation that Equatorial Guinea meets the minimum EITI requirement of ensuring an enabling environment for local civil society actors to participate freely in natural resource governance. Moreover, whether or not Equatorial Guinea moves forward with EITI, the IMF should make minimum civic space protections a meaningful criterion for all engagement.   
 
 
Asmara Klein is a senior program officer for civic space at the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). 

Related content

Countries Struggling with Governance Manage $1.2 Trillion in Resource Wealth

David Mihalyi, Anna Fleming
8 September 2017

How Did Fiscal Rules Hold Up in the Commodity Price Crash?

Report
21 June 2018
David Mihalyi, Liliana Fernández

كيف صمدت القواعد المالية في مواجهة انهيار اأ صعار الصلع الأ ص اصية؟

21 November 2018
David Mihalyi, Liliana Fernández

Resource Governance Index: From Legal Reform to Implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Report
15 April 2019

De Panama à Londres : agir contre la corruption légale et illégale au sommet anticorruption du Royaume-Uni

Daniel Kaufmann, Alexandra Gillies
9 May 2016

Recent Tweets

  • NRGInstitute
    NRGInstitute
    @NRGInstitute
    Follow @NRGInstitute
    💵 How can strategies at the international, country and local levels respond to corruption challenges? 🖥️ Watch thi… t.co/76Og3yrG5S
    17 hours 47 min ago.
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • NRGInstitute
    NRGInstitute
    @NRGInstitute
    Follow @NRGInstitute
    Learn more about national #oil companies with NRGI's National Oil Company Database. Oil drum… t.co/chnc1TetuO
    20 hours 49 min ago.
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • NRGInstitute
    NRGInstitute
    @NRGInstitute
    Follow @NRGInstitute
    ❓ Want to know more about the results of NRGI's work? 🌏 Find stories of impact from around the world here:… t.co/QeaRLzH3Cr
    1 day 2 hours ago.
    Reply Retweet Favorite
  • NRGInstitute
    NRGInstitute
    @NRGInstitute
    Follow @NRGInstitute
    And learn more about how Pemex's debt problems are impacting #Mexico's approach to the #EnergyTransition: 🇲🇽… t.co/xpupY4HpWz
    1 day 15 hours ago.
    Reply Retweet Favorite
Helping people to realize the benefits of their countries’ endowments of oil, gas and minerals.
Follow on Facebook Follow on Twitter Subscribe to Updates
  • Topics
    Beneficial ownership
    Civic space
    Commodity prices
    Contract transparency and monitoring
    Coronavirus
    Corruption
    Economic diversification
    Energy transition
    Global initiatives
    Legislation and regulation
    Licensing and negotiation
    Mandatory payment disclosure
    Measurement of environmental and social impacts
    Measurement of governance
    Open data
    Revenue management
    Revenue sharing
    Sovereign wealth funds
    State-owned enterprises
    Subnational governance
    Tax policy and revenue collection
  • Approach
    • Stakeholders
    • Natural Resource Charter
    • Regional knowledge hubs
  • Priority
    Countries
    • Colombia
    • Dem. Rep. of Congo
    • Ghana
    • Guinea
    • Mexico
    • Mongolia
    • Myanmar
    • Nigeria
    • Peru
    • Tanzania
    • Tunisia
    • Uganda
  • Learning
    • Training
    • Primers
  • Analysis & Tools
    • Publications
    • Tools
    • Economic models
  • About Us
    • What we do
    • NRGI impact
    • Board of Directors
    • Advisory Council
    • Leadership team
    • Experts and staff
    • Careers and opportunities
    • Contact us
    • Financials
    • Grant-making
    • Privacy policy
  • News
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Search