RWI Summer School: Technical Training Course and Policy Lab on Governance and Natural Resource Revenues

In 2007, Revenue Watch in partnership with Tiri, started what is now an annual summer course at the Central European University in Budapest. The curriculum is composed of evidence-based practical training courses on governance and integrity in the realm of natural resource revenue management, is part of a joint effort to develop a shared understanding for civil society activists working on governance issues for oil, gas and mining revenues, and to build community knowledge by expanding the technical training skills of course attendees.

Two courses are offered relating to the governance of oil, gas and mining revenues: an intermediate level curriculum about the oil, gas and mining industries and current approaches to the resource curse; and a "trainers' training session" that focuses on specific tools and techniques. Together, these courses offer an interdisciplinary approach that bridges law, politics, economics, public administration, public sector ethics and statistical and ethnographic approaches. Participants become familiar with core strategic and critical approaches for effective and sustainable corruption control and organizational integrity and with fiscal transparency in the context of broader policy solutions for the extractives sector.

This approach to capacity building (i.e. strengthening the general critical and analytical capacities of the participants in a broad context) stems from RWI's objective of cultivating a network of human resources with fundamental and applied expertise. By teaming up with Tiri and CEU, the program maximizes existing providers of expertise as well as brings in-house experts into the pool of trainers.

For more information on the activities of Tiri, please see www.tiri.org/. For more information on the Central European University, please see www.ceu.hu/.