Oil to Cash: Fighting the Resource Curse through Cash Transfers
1/28/13
Todd Moss, senior fellow and vice president for programs at the Center for Global Development, demonstrates how leaders of poor countries can beat the resource curse -- the paradox that countries that strike it rich often suffer from high poverty, dismal governance, and terrible corruption. His policy option, called Oil to Cash, helps foster a social contract in resource-rich countries by directly distributing natural resource revenues. Under this proposal, a government would transfer some or all of the revenue from natural resource extraction to citizens in a universal, transparent, and regular payment--and, importantly, then tax part of it back.
On Voice of America's 
Partnership for Growth (PFG) is a new model for the United States to engage with a select group of countries to accelerate and sustain broad-based economic growth. It involves rigorous joint analysis of constraints to growth, the development of joint action plans to address these constraints, and high-level mutual accountability for implementation. One of PFG’s objectives is to engage not just aid but also a range of available tools to unlock new investment. CGD is pleased to host Gayle Smith to present on PFG. Todd Moss will then moderate a conversation with representatives from the U.S. agencies involved in the partnership as well as representatives from the first set of PFG countries, El Salvador, Ghana, Philippines, and Tanzania. 
Leaders from around the world meet in New York City next week to review progress towards the 
As the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew thousands of barrels of oil each day, media attention has been focused on the toll on nearby economies and ecosystems and on the U.S. political response. On this edition of the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, we look beyond the Gulf of Mexico to explore what implications America’s biggest environmental disaster might hold for the new offshore oil boom getting underway in Africa. 
