Is Transparency Enough? An Examination of the Effect of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) on Accountability, Corruption and Trust in Zambia
Abstract
Extractive industry governance is a hot topic in both academic
research and the public arena. The area that has been
most heavily studied in the academic field is the resource
curse, which documents the negative effects of dependence
on resource-rents in resource-rich developing countries.
The political strand of this literature argues that a strong
dependence on resource-rents negatively impacts three
governance outcomes: accountability, corruption and trust.
Scholars argue that these governance issues can be improved
if transparency is increased, which inspired the creation of
the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI).
The EITI is a transnational non-governmental organisation
launched in 2002, with the aim of improving accountability,
corruption and trust in the extractive industry by increasing
transparency in the sector. In order to be EITI-compliant,
countries must make key documents and data from
their extractive industry publicly available and form a
multi-stakeholder group with members of civil society
organisations (CSOs), extractive industry and government
representatives to oversee reporting. Summary of ICTD Working Paper 175.