Guinea’s mining sector has rapidly expanded in recent years, but now faces serious challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic. This post explores those impacts and makes recommendations to the government about how it can safeguard the sector.
The road to oil and gas riches is rapidly narrowing for some new producers. The crash in prices, triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, creates specific challenges for a group of "prospective producer" countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The review’s executive summary provides an overview of NRGI’s programming across its thematic areas. The document also includes select outcome stories that demonstrate how NRGI’s theory of change manifests in real-world interventions and results.
The coronavirus pandemic and the collapse in the oil price are testing precarious economic models in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). But if countries in the region deprioritize the diversification of their energy mixes they will miss out on the long-term opportunities renewables can bring.
For many developing counties, natural gas offers promise. There can be hidden costs to gas, however, as experiences in Ghana and Algeria show. Although certainly not without challenges of its own, renewable energy may help countries in similar situations better manage their energy use and revenue.
So far the Mongolian government has failed to introduce necessary laws and regulations to promote transparency around mining company ownership. NGOs can lead by taking initiative and pushing the reform process.
Extractive sector policies and governance choices are holding back solar and wind projects in many countries. Part of the trouble lies in the shortsighted habits of political decision-making that oil, gas or coal exploitation can foster. Debates about domestic energy use are highly political and can fall prey to narrow agendas.
In the first post in a planned series of commentary, NRGI experts outline the fundamental dilemmas faced by resource-dependent countries as the world transitions from fossil fuels to more sustainable sources of energy. They use Nigeria's oil sector and the DRC's cobalt industry as examples.
As the oil, mining and gas sectors suffer the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, extractive companies may attempt to excuse, delay or otherwise revise their contractual or legal obligations. This post provides guidance for governments of resource-dependent countries on how to prepare to safeguard their industries.
