…on how Oil Resources Can Generate Development
BY Abubakari Seidu Ajarfor
The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), in collaboration with the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), will?tomorrow?begin a public lecture on transparency and accountability in the oil and gas sector.
The lecture will feature Professor Larry Diamond of Hoover Institution, Stanford University (USA) and Dr. Mohammed Amin of ACEP as discussant.
The focus of the lecture will be geared towards ?topic ?Managing Windfall Wealth: How Oil Resources Can Generate Development Rather Than Decay? at the Coconut Grove Hotel, Accra.
A massive wave of new oil and gas discoveries has the potential to generate substantial growth and development in Africa over the next decade.
However, if the ?resource curse? plays out as it usually does, this new oil boom will only serve to distort development, entrench authoritarian rule and inhibit democracy.
Professor Diamond?s lecture will however analyze the opportunities and challenges presented to developing nations by oil, gas and other ?windfall? wealth, and explore strategic options for securing accountable and “developmental” governance of such resources.
The top US scholar will review strategies for ensuring that such resources are managed accountably and “developmentally.
The lecture will draw Participants from government institutions and agencies, industry players, researchers, academics, policymakers, business leaders, civil society activists, and political party representatives.
Prof. Diamond is a longstanding associate of the Ghana Center for Democratic (CDD-Ghana). He delivered CDD-Ghana?s maiden Kronti ne Akwamu (Democracy and Governance) Lecture in 2005 on the topic: ?Democracy and Development: The Inseparable Links?.
Mohammed Amin Adam, Executive Director of ACEP, will among others participants open discussions on important matters relating to oil and gas in Ghana and the world at large.
ACEP is an African energy policy think tank, an advisory based organization working with partners around the World and especially in Africa to harness the potential of Africa?s vast energy resources (oil, gas and renewable) for the accelerated development of the Continent.
The Centre recently added mineral policy to its portfolio following the demand by stakeholders to expand their reach to helping address the problems facing Africa?s mining sector.
Source:?The Punch Newspaper
