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The Business Pursuit of Local Governance: Extractive Industry and Civil Society for Public Accountability in Colombia

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Business and Sustainability

Part of the book series: Sustainability and Innovation ((SUSTAINABILITY))

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Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, many companies have been getting explicitly involved in promoting good governance. The oil and mining sector is very prolific in this regard with at least three of the largest mining and oil companies having programs to promote public accountability at the international, national or local level. Initiatives to foster transparency, citizen participation or the strengthening of government capacities in which companies play an important role multiply. Why are for-profit organizations, whose aim is to extract natural resources and make profit, willing to invest time and money in promoting governance? Which factors allow for some companies to get more involved than others? The present chapter intends to answer this question. Based on a case study in Colombia and more than 40 interviews with companies’ employees, public servants and societal leaders, I analyze the motivations, interests and values that led an extractive company to engage in these types of initiatives.

We are obviously interested in showing that we have a positive impact over the region where we work (said the company’s employee). And we won’t demonstrate this if we had not clear indicators of how the public budget (of the local government) has increased; but also if we don’t have clear indicators of how such budget has been spent […] We are those with the greater interest in a well spent budget, that is used for development and not for white elephants that are useless. (Personal interview with a Newmont employee (Newmont is a mining company and the main business partner of the gold company Yanacocha in Peru), Lima, November 24th, 2009.)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See the Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) and the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (COST) in other sectors. At the national level, the Bulgarian 2000 Coalition or the National Anticorruption Forum in South Africa is also an example of these types of initiatives where private companies play a key role in public accountability promotion or public sector capacity building processes. There are even more specific programs, such as the one supported by the National Business Initiative in South Africa to reinforce public school administrative capacities (Educational Quality Improvement Programme) or a similar project in Brazil promoted by the American Chamber of Commerce (Instituto Qualidade no Ensino).

  2. 2.

    Exxon Mobil (2011: 39), British Petroleum BP (2013 and 2011) and Shell, RioTinto (2011: 15), Anglo American and Newmont.

  3. 3.

    For a deeper discussion on the multiple dimensions of sustainability, see the introduction of this book.

  4. 4.

    This article is based on a PhD dissertation presented by the author in 2013 (González Espinosa 2013b). Two other case studies are analyzed in this dissertation.

  5. 5.

    The PhD dissertation in which this chapter is based actually develops two other cases in Colombia and Peru.

  6. 6.

    Occidental is a U.S. international oil and gas exploration and production company, which owns a chemical manufacturer subsidiary (OxyChem) and with more than 40,000 employees and contractors worldwide. In 2012, they produced 766,000 barrels of oil per day on average. OXY has important investments in the Middle East accounting for about a third of its production and owns some other projects in Latin America, especially in Colombia, where the most important field is Caño Limon in Arauca discovered in 1983 and exploited through a production sharing agreement with the Colombian state-owned company called Ecopetrol (see www.oxy.com).

  7. 7.

    Royalties are an economic compensation paid to the Colombian state by companies that extract natural nonrenewable resources. A portion of such revenues is distributed to producing regions like Arauca located in the east of the country on the border with Venezuela.

  8. 8.

    PowerPoint presentation by Contraloría General de la República about CSIR, 2006.

  9. 9.

    Personal interview with OXY employee, Bogotá, March 5th, 2010.

  10. 10.

    Personal interview with OXY employee, Bogotá, March 5th, 2010.

  11. 11.

    Personal interviews with the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol, Bogotá, March 14th, 2008, with a public servant at Contraloría General de la República, Bogotá, March 6th, 2008, and with a Petrobras employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2008.

  12. 12.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2012.

  13. 13.

    http://www.thesullivanfoundation.org/The-Global-Sullivan-Principles.html

  14. 14.

    http://www.voluntaryprinciples.org

  15. 15.

    Personal interview with OXY employee, Bogotá, March 5th, 2010.

  16. 16.

    Personal interviews with the state oil company Ecopetrol, Bogotá, March 14th, 2008, and with an employee of a oil transportation company, Bogotá, April 4th, 2008.

  17. 17.

    Assessment of the agreement subscribed by Procuraduría General de la Nación, Fiscalía General de la Nación and Contraloría General de la República, July 12th, 2005.

  18. 18.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2012.

  19. 19.

    Personal interviews with a public servant at the regional office of Contraloría General de la República, Arauca, April 22th, 2010, with a manager of the Chamber of Commerce, Arauca, April 22nd, 2010, and with an expert and consultant at Procuraduría General de la Nación, Bogotá, April 20th, 2010.

  20. 20.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2012.

  21. 21.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2012.

  22. 22.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March 7th, 2012.

  23. 23.

    Personal interview with a manager at Asociación Colombiana de Petróleo (ACP), Bogotá, March 4th, 2010.

  24. 24.

    Meeting with various business representatives associated to the different regional CSIRs in Colombia, March 5th, 2008.

  25. 25.

    Personal interview with an OXY employee, Bogotá, March 5th, 2010.

  26. 26.

    Personal interview with a former OXY employee, Bogotá, March the 7th, 2012.

  27. 27.

    Personal interview with OXY employee, Bogotá, March 5th, 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Finanzas, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Calle 12 No. 1-17 Este, Bogotá, Colombia

    Ana Carolina González Espinosa

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  1. Ana Carolina González Espinosa
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Correspondence to Ana Carolina González Espinosa .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

    Achim Lang

  2. Politics and International Relations Program, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

    Hannah Murphy

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Espinosa, A.C.G. (2014). The Business Pursuit of Local Governance: Extractive Industry and Civil Society for Public Accountability in Colombia. In: Lang, A., Murphy, H. (eds) Business and Sustainability. Sustainability and Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07239-5_9

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