Petroleum and Poverty

Extractive Industries Program Manager, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Yaounde, Cameroon

Oliver Mokom is the extractive industries program manager for the Catholic Relief Services' office in Yaounde, Cameroon. He works closely with the CRS-supported Independent Pipeline Monitoring Committee that is tracking the impacts of the construction of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline in Cameroon. Prior to joining CRS, Oliver worked for the Cameroonian Agriculture Ministry, where he represented the government at community meetings on the pipeline.

Strategic Issues Advisor for Africa, Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Ian Gary is strategic issues advisor for Africa with Catholic Relief Services (CRS). He is the co-author, with Terry Lynn Karl of Stanford University, of Bottom of the Barrel: Africa's Oil Boom and the Poor. He is the lead staff person for the CRS Extractive Industries in Africa Initiative. Prior to joining CRS, he was with the Human Rights and International Cooperation unit in the Ford Foundation in New York. Gary has worked with local nongovernmental organizations in Ghana and Zimbabwe and has conducted field missions to 15 African countries, including Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville. He holds a M.A. degree from the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) in the politics of international resources and development.

Director, Revenue Watch

Svetlana Tsalik is the director of the Revenue Watch, a program of the Open Society Institute’s Central Eurasia Project. As such, she conducts research, works with local activists, and conducts advocacy in support of improved transparency and accountability in the management of petroleum resources in developing countries. Prior to this she worked as a management consultant for A T. Kearney in New York. In 2000, she graduated with a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, with a focus on center-regional relations in post-soviet Russia.