Illuminating Resource Revenue Transparency - A New Guide

Posted by Jon Shields

Available today (October 19) for the first time in hard print, the revised IMF Guide on Resource Revenue Transparency is a comprehensive handbook on good transparency practices for countries with substantial revenues from extractive industries. For governments, it provides detailed advice on  the information they need to make good decisions about the collection and use of these revenues - from the design of tax regimes to the management of resource funds. For citizens and other stakeholders, the Guide gives examples of good practice around the world and what can realistically be expected to be shared with them.

The Guide supplements the revised IMF Manual on Fiscal Transparency (see yesterday's Oct 18 blog). It applies the principles of the revised IMF Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency to the unique set of transparency problems faced by countries that derive a significant share of their revenues from natural resources. The Guide has been revised to reflect the new Code and to provide more recent examples of good practice by individual countries. It provides a framework for assessing resource-specific issues within broader fiscal transparency assessments (including so-called ‘fiscal ROSCs’). Since its initial release in 2005, the Guide has been used by the governments and legislatures of resource rich countries, civil societies, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), providers of technical support and interested academics and observers.