Governance

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MANAGING AFRICA’S NATURAL RESOURCE ENDOWMENTS: NEW DISPENSATIONS AND GOOD-FIT APPROACHES

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Kobena T. Hanson*

ABSTRACT

Managing a nation’s extractive natural resource endowments can advance national development if done meaningfully. Unfortunately, across Africa, the apparent mismanagement of such resources, poor growth rates, social tensions, and civil strife in resource-rich countries have thrown up a great deal of literature on what is now known as resource curse.It has also ignited calls for enhanced governance and improved capacities for the myriad of actors engaged in natural resource extraction. This article draws on the extant literature to interrogate the complex entanglements of issues involved in the natural resource value chain in Africa. It argues that in spite of the general ills, economic challenges, and socio-political pains that resource-rich African nations face in exploiting and managing their natural resources, the extractive industry in Africa is evolving positively, and that the situation of resource-rich African states is not immutable. Available evidence suggests that Africa is emerging a new, more complex, participatory, and coordinated vision of NRM; a development that offers opportunities and possibilities for Africa to engage emerging actors especially in the global South.The article concludes that what Africa needs is an approach with a good fit to local realities, and an enhancement of individual and institutional capacities.

Keywords: Africa, Capacity Development, Governance, Natural Resource Management.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.6

* Chief Executive Officer, Strategic Outlooks, Ghana/KM Consultant, AfDB, P. O. Box CT9049, Cantonments, Accra, Ghana, E-mail: kthanson64@yahoo.com

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LAND GOVERNANCE AND LAND DEALS IN AFRICA: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN ADVANCING COMMUNITY RIGHTS

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Blair Rutherford*

ABSTRACT

This article examines the converging focus on “governance” by those donors and scholars who promote investment in land in Africa as well as by scholars and activists who criticize what they call “land grabs.” This focus on governance is particularly found in terms of understanding and assessing socio-economic consequences among the communities for the land deals, investment initiatives which have been accelerating on the continent over the last decade and longer. This article expands the concept of governance by examining how structures of authority and power are also involved in defining who belongs, or who has claims to belong, to these territories. It explores the topic of land deals and community rights through the conceptual lens of governance and belonging, the ability to be recognized as part of the community at various levels of action (including in terms of national citizenship). It starts with an examination of the recent increase in land investments in Africa, setting out its broad parameters, including public criticisms raised and some of the protests around them, and noting some of the key issues on which scholars have focused. In the next two sections, the article analyses these processes through the conceptual lens of governance and belonging as a way to bring out what the article proposes are key issues for assessing matters on community rights in regards to investments concerning natural resources in Africa, particularly over land. This analysis raises questions about those who uncritically promote Free and Prior Informed Consent as the solution to ensure “communities” approve any land deals.

Keywords: Land grabs, governance, Africa, community, politics of belonging

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.10

* Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada