Resource Governance Assessment: frequently asked questions

The Resource Governance Assessment (RGA) is NRGI's framework for independently assessing how governments govern their countries' extractive resources, including oil, gas and minerals.

The assessment examines governance across four components that together span the resource decision chain:

• Licensing and taxation
• Revenue management
• Socio-environmental impacts
• Energy transition

Each assessment combines a common set of core indicators (50) used in every country with optional indicators (75) selected to reflect national priorities and context.

Whether natural resource wealth supports inclusive, prosperous societies depends on how it is governed — and the questions that determine this have widened. Environmental and social impacts, climate commitments and the energy transition now play a much larger role in how countries manage oil, gas and minerals than they did when NRGI's earlier assessment tools were designed.

NRGI developed the RGA to reflect that broader understanding of resource governance and to give governments, civil society and other stakeholders a clearer evidence base for the decisions they face. Its more flexible structure also keeps it relevant across very different country contexts.

Governments, civil society organizations, oversight institutions, journalists, researchers, think tanks and multilateral organizations. Companies, investors and development partners can also use the findings to better understand governance risks and opportunities for engagement.

The RGA builds on and succeeds the Resource Governance Index (RGI). The RGI was published in 2012, 2017 and 2021 and established a global evidence base across dozens of countries; those results remain valid as a record of the periods they cover, but the RGI is no longer being updated. As governance challenges became more complex, a single global index tied to a specific point in time could no longer capture the full picture. While both assess resource governance, the RGA is a fundamentally redesigned framework rather than an updated edition of the RGI.

Three main differences:

• Broader scope. The RGA assesses four components: licensing and taxation, revenue management, socio-environmental impacts and the energy transition. The RGI covered only the first two.
• More flexible framework. Every country is assessed against a common set of core indicators, while optional indicators allow assessments to reflect national context and priorities.
• New methodology. The RGA uses a different assessment and scoring methodology. Because of these changes, overall RGA and RGI scores cannot be compared directly, although comparisons remain possible for individual indicators that are consistent with previous RGI editions.

No. The RGA is not designed as a ranking or league table. Every country is assessed against the same core indicators, but because countries are assessed at different times and each assessment can also include optional, country-specific indicators, countries are not all assessed against exactly the same set of indicators. Overall scores should not be compared across countries.

The purpose of the RGA is to support practical action and learning in each country, not competition between countries.

Not directly. The RGA uses a different methodology, broader scope and different scoring approach from the RGI, meaning overall scores are not comparable.

In some cases, it may be possible to examine changes in individual indicators where the methodology remains broadly consistent, but overall or component scores should not be treated as equivalent.

Governments can use the findings to inform policy reforms, strengthen implementation, prioritize institutional improvements and monitor progress over time.

The assessment provides an evidence-based picture of where governance frameworks align with legal requirements and good practice, and where gaps remain.

Civil society organizations, oversight institutions and journalists can use the detailed indicator-level findings and supporting evidence to identify governance strengths, highlight areas for improvement and encourage informed public debate.

All of this evidence is publicly available, so it can support research, advocacy and accountability work.

Each assessment is accompanied by analysis and recommendations that help stakeholders identify practical opportunities for improvement.

Publication of an assessment is intended to begin, rather than end, a national conversation by providing a shared evidence base for dialogue between governments, civil society and other stakeholders.

The first RGA assessment, covering Indonesia's licensing and taxation component, will be published in the coming weeks, with the remaining three components for Indonesia to follow. Assessments for Chile, Senegal and Zambia will be published over the coming months, with additional countries to follow over time.

These countries represent the first phase of the RGA, which is designed to expand to additional countries over time.

Yes. The RGA is designed as a long-term initiative that will expand over time, enabling more countries to assess resource governance using the framework and track progress through successive assessments. The framework itself will also continue to evolve: new optional modules, including one on value addition, are already in development.

The RGA is designed to be repeated over time so countries can monitor progress and identify new priorities for reform.

The timing of future assessments has not yet been standardized and may vary depending on country context, available resources and program priorities. As a general guide, assessments are unlikely to be repeated more than once every two to three years, since reforms take time to design and implement.

This process can be motivated by many factors, including: moments of significant policy decisions, electoral debates, when a new government assumes power, in response to a resource-related corruption scandal, or when new deposits are discovered. A country assessment can also serve as a powerful evidence-based entry point to engage in a jurisdiction for the first time.

Indicators are divided into two categories: law and practice. Most topics are assessed through both a law indicator and a practice indicator, capturing the "implementation gap" between what regulation requires and how it is applied.

It depends on the country. An assessment looks at the sectors that matter in that country — mining only, oil and gas only, or both — and the RGA's indicators are written to work for either.

Where both sectors are significant, they are assessed separately, using one questionnaire per sector, because governments typically regulate and oversee them through different laws and institutions. Some indicators can be answered with the same evidence in both.

Assessments are carried out by researchers contracted by NRGI, using a standardized methodology and publicly available evidence.

NRGI's country teams oversee the process and work with local partners and national stakeholders to ensure assessments accurately reflect each country's governance context.

All findings must be supported by publicly available evidence. Confidential or unpublished information is not used.

Stakeholder engagement plays a much greater role in the RGA than it did in the RGI. Consultations take place when indicators are selected, and again when preliminary findings are shared with key stakeholders for review. Governments and other stakeholders are invited to review the evidence and submit additional publicly available documentation before results are finalized.

Each indicator is assessed using a published scoring matrix with clearly defined scoring levels, helping ensure consistency across assessments.

Where appropriate, assessments may also undergo independent external review before publication.

Final findings are determined using the published methodology and evidence, and are applied consistently across all assessments.

On the dedicated page for each country assessment, which includes:

• A country report summarizing the main findings and recommendations
• A briefing on each of the four components
• A supporting document with detailed indicator-level results, references and evidence
• Information on the assessment methodology

All assessment materials are published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, so they can be reused and adapted with attribution. Indicator-level results are also published in open, machine-readable data formats.

These resources are available on each country's assessment page and can be downloaded for further analysis.