The World Bank’s Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy division and the Forum of Federations, with co-sponsorship from Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation invited various stakeholders to attend the Conference on Oil and Gas in Federal Systems, which washeld on March 3–4, 2010, 8:45AM-5:30PM, at World Bank Headquarters in Washington, DC.

The conference was dedicated to the particular political, economic, and social challenges arising from the exploitation of petroleum resources in federal systems. It was intended to provide a platform for open dialogue and debate among a wide variety of prominent experts from government, academia, and the development community on major development and public finance issues that are common to federal and decentralized petroleum-producing countries.

While a lot of attention has been put on issues related to the management of natural resources in unitary states, there has been little structured debate on the particular challenges facing sub-national and decentralized authorities. The conference illustrated these challenges through the experience of 12 federal countries, which are noted in the agenda.

The event featured four prominent keynote speakers: Otaviano Canuto dos Santos Filho, Vice President and Head of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network, World Bank; Daniel Yergin, President of Cambridge Energy Associates and author of numerous books on the oil industry; and Nicholas Haysom, Director of Political Affairs, Office of the Secretary General, United Nations; and Peter Cameron, Professor of International Energy Law and Policy and Director of Research at the CEPMLP, University of Dundee.