Speaking at the Graduate Institute on 18 January, leading anti-corruption expert Daniel Kaufmann called for greater research into high-level corruption in the natural resources sector.

“We have a major challenge on our hands” said Mr Kaufmann, who is President and CEO of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). Launching the Resource Governance Index, he noted that “over 85% of resource-rich countries are not performing satisfactorily. The face and dimensions of corruption have changed as opposed to twenty years ago, when the focus was on petty corruption and administrative bribes. What we see today in Latin America with the Petrobras and Odebrecht scandals is a new type of corruption, one that involves state capture, which is very high level, and which has major macro-economic implications.”

Mr Kaufmann’s talk was organised by the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) as part of its r4d.ch research project on Curbing Illicit Financial Flows from Resource-rich Developing Countries: Improving Natural Resource Governance to Finance the SDGs. Co-organizers include the Graduate Institute’s e-journal International Development Policy (IDP), NRGI, and the Swiss Development and Cooperation agency (SDC).

You can watch here a conversation between Dr. Daniel Kaufmann and Prof. Gilles Carbonnier, main applicant for the r4d.ch research project:

In this video, Dr. Daniel Kaufmann presents the findings of the Resource Governance Index and elaborates on key issues that are currently debated at the global and national levels with regard to the governance of – and trade in – oil, gas, minerals and metals: