German Foundation launches Oil and Gas Almanac in Tanzania to Promote Transparency

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Tanzania in conjunction with the Natural Resource Governance Institute and Berlin based Open Oil have launched an oil and gas almanac a Wiki Platform that will act as a country-level reference guide.

The database will exist in English with more than 90 articles as well as in Swahili with more than 65 articles and targets various stakeholders in oil and gas including Researchers, Policy makers, Media , General public, Civil societies, Politicians among others.

The Almanac according to FES Tanzania will provide much needed information which is currently not readily available and help guide great expectations by citizens about the sector.

FES adds that its research has seen that a majority of citizens (77%) want more information on natural gas – recent gas discoveries with a further: 3 out of 4 citizens currently not aware of new gas policies.

The database will thus act as a basic library by providing this useful information all of which is fully sourced thus gives you relevant references to revisit.  There are more than 1,000 footnotes counted as one unit – researches and reports.

The founders of the database however say they expect challenges in access to information and in translation from English to Kiswahili

“The almanac is only theq first step, what is important is how we translate the knowledge for common use,” Abdallah Katunzi of FES Tanzania says.

A Twaweza’s survey carried recently shows that going forward 51% of the surveyed respondents expect to get O&G information from the media, and 31% from government.

“Transparency is just the beginning of accountability but the road is bumpy. There is a  role for Open Data to play,” Samuel Bekoe, Africa Regional Associate, NRGI.

Other similar almanacs exist in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, S. Sudan, Liberia, S. Leone, Iran, Colombia, Egypt, Colombia, Niger, Azerbaijan, Libya, Syria, and Sudan.