Sound of One Hand Clapping: Information Disclosure for Social and Political Action for Accountability in Extractive Governance in Mozambique

Abstract

Corruption through opaque public contracts costs Africa billions of dollars in revenue loss annually. Globally, initiatives to address this have centred on information disclosure (ID) but under what conditions does it work to promote accountability in the extractive sector that for a long time has seen its revenue management as being a major cause of conflict in Africa? Our study on this issue in Mozambique reveals intriguing findings, which suggest that protagonists of ID would need to recalibrate their strategies for promoting accountability. The study on ID in extractive governance in Mozambique has found 17 factors that connect to result in citizen and institutional inaction in demanding government accountability. The lessons from the study for policy and practice are that unless there is a link between ID and a government’s reputation, which scales up to the risk of a ruling government losing power, accountability is unlikely to occur when new information is disclosed.