By Peter Apps LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Campaign groups in resource-rich African countries are becoming more vocal wanting to know where oil and mining money goes but risk mounting government clampdowns, an advocacy group said on Friday. Overall, experts say countries and companies are becoming more transparent, pointing to relative success in states such as Nigeria and Ghana, but in others such as the Republic of Congo, Angola and Gabon activists face restrictions, arrest and harassment. On Thursday, oil-rich Gabon suspended the licences of 20 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) after they published a letter criticising the way in which state resources were being spent, accusing them of crossing a line into party politics. The groups included the local arm of the Publish What You Pay coalition, a global consortium including major aid agencies. "There has been an increase in clampdowns that has paralleled the rise in demand for transparency," Radhika Sarin, international coordinator for Publish What You Pay, told Reuters. "A lot of these countries are saying they want to be more transparent but when civil society start asking difficult questions about where the money is going then we see a lot of pushing back." Commodity producing countries should have reaped huge revenues from booming commodity prices in recent years -- including oil briefly hitting $100 a barrel this month -- on limited supply and soaring demand from Asian economies. But Sarin said too little of the money has made it through to the poorest in the form of improved services, schools and healthcare, all too often disappearing instead. In Angola, a British researcher for campaign group Global Witness was arrested last year and later released, while in Congo two activists were charged with embezzlement and fraud. "It is an attempt to silence the debate but in reality it has the opposite effect," Sarin said. Mounting international and domestic pressure -- as well as some mining and oil companies saying they favour greater transparency as it makes business sense and can lead to better deals -- has boosted transparency efforts. Many countries and firms have signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Gabon's position on the board of the EITI could be threatened if the NGO suspension remained in place, she said. "If the implication is that the NGOs cannot issue press releases or do their work, then Gabon could be kicked off the board as one of the first criteria is that they allow free debate on these issues," she said. But while the initiative might have some effect on governments, she said the willingness of some Chinese, Indian and Malaysia firms to operate in areas where European and American firms fear to tread reduced the impact of campaigning."It means we have much less leverage," Sarin said.
An HIV+ girl walks with her plate to the wash basin after eating her lunch at a school for HIV/AIDS affected children in Bhugaon, some 130 km (81 miles) from Mumbai ...
