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Political Parties and Natural Resource Governance: A Practical Guide for Developing Resource Policy Positions

  • Briefing

  • 5 April 2018

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Resource wealth brings a unique set of challenges often known as the “resource curse”—challenges political parties with informed and comprehensive policy positions are well positioned to help address.

Political parties have an important role to play in ensuring that these resources are managed transparently, accountably and in the long-term best interest of their countries.

According to research by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the Natural Resource Governance Institute, where there is free and equal access to political power, there are stronger laws, institutions and practices in place to help realize the full value of resource extraction and to manage resulting revenues.

The purposes of this guide are to examine the role that parties have and can play in resource governance, and to assist political parties looking to develop strong policy positions across a wide range of political and technical topics. The report builds on the lessons from a 2015-2016 project in Ghana on the development of resource policy positions for political parties, and is informed by six country case studies as well as a broad body of good practice in party engagement and resource governance.