Ian Gary
Executive Director
Ian Gary is a senior policy, research, and advocacy professional with over 25 years of experience advocating for financial transparency and accountability reforms.
Prior to joining The FACT Coalition as executive director, Ian directed Oxfam America’s global policy, advocacy and program work focused on promoting transparent and accountable financial flows – for example from oil and mining revenues, taxes and aid – to fight poverty. Based in Washington, DC, Ian led a team of policy managers, advisors and researchers. Prior to joining Oxfam in 2005, Ian was Strategic Issues Advisor for Africa and Strategic Issues Advisor for Extractive Industries at Catholic Relief Services (CRS) from 1999 to 2005. He has held positions with the Ford Foundation as well as international development organizations in the U.S. and Africa.
Ian has been a frequent commentator on anti-corruption and financial transparency issues in major media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, PBS, AP, CNN, Financial Times, New York Times, The Economist, and other outlets.
Ian is the author of the Oxfam America report Ghana’s Big Test: Oil’s Challenge to Democratic Development(2009); co-author, with Terry Lynn Karl of Stanford University, of the CRS report Bottom of the Barrel: Africa’s Oil Boom and the Poor (2003); and co-author of Chad’s Oil: Miracle or Mirage?(2005), issued by CRS and the Bank Information Center. Ian has been a member of the World Bank Extractive Industries Advisory Group; a member of the Global Steering Committee of Publish What You Pay; and a founding steering committee member of the Open Contracting Partnership. Ian is a board member of Advocates for Community Alternatives, an NGO based in Accra, Ghana.
He has testified twice before the US Congress and given presentations at The Brookings Institute, European Parliament, World Bank, IMF, Royal Institute of International Affairs, United Nations, U.S. State Department and Oxford University, among other venues. Ian has conducted field research on extractive industries issues in Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Peru, Laos and Cambodia. He holds a MA degree from the University of Leeds (UK) in the Politics of International Resources and Development and a BA from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.