Overview: The Energy Governance and Capacity Initiative (EGCI) is a U.S. Department of State-led, U.S. interagency effort to provide a wide range of technical and capacity building assistance to the host governments of select countries that are on the verge of becoming the world’s next generation of oil and gas producers. The countries receiving EGCI assistance have world class hydrocarbon resource potential and expect to receive sizable, near-term financial windfalls from the development of their oil and gas resources. EGCI’s core objective is to help these countries establish the capacity to manage their oil and gas sector revenues wisely and in a manner that maximizes the value of the resource development for the government. Although EGCI’s goals are country-specific in nature, the program broadly tries to ensure sound and transparent energy sector governance for the benefit of national economic development.
EGCI also supports a broad range of U.S. foreign policy objectives, including ensuring the security of global oil and gas supplies, supporting clean energy goals by maximizing the efficiency of oil and gas resource development, furthering political and economic stability in developing countries, promoting democracy and human rights, and combating corruption.
Government-to-Government Support: The EGCI program taps into the U.S. Government’s considerable in-house expertise and capabilities in order to provide assistance that is tailored to the specific needs of individual countries. A by-product of this government-to-government engagement is the potential for establishing long-term working relationships that will foster institutional stability and enhancement of the U.S. Government’s ability to further diplomacy on critical issues, such as promoting sound energy sector governance.
Capacity Building and Technical Assistance: U.S. Government assistance provided by the EGCI program is designed to addresses specific needs that have been identified for particular countries. Where applicable, this assistance will complement other reform efforts (e.g., the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI)), but it will be designed to provide value-added that is tailored to address capacity shortfalls in ways otherwise not obtainable from other donors. U.S. Government agencies that provide technical assistance through EGCI include: the Department of Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE); the Department of Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance (OTA); the Department of Commerce’s Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP); and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Sample Programs and Activities: Examples of the types of programs and activities that EGCI undertakes in various countries include: workshops and seminars on leasing, revenue management and regulatory best practices for oil and gas sectors; in-country support to create a regulator that will provide independent energy sector oversight and management; legal and technical guidance to support the implementation of reforms and policies that will create sustainability in the energy sector as well as a commercial environment conducive to attracting large scale investment; specialized assistance in oil and gas revenue sharing and distribution as well as in related financial and tax management; implementation of financial tracking systems and other measures to reduce corruption; technical training in oil and gas resource identification; training in petroleum resource assessment methodology and best practices related to geological/geophysical data analysis and management; and capacity building assistance to boost in-house technical and management skills in energy-related ministries and governmental entities.
