TRANSLATING THE EXTRACTIVE RESOURCES TO ECONOMIC GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION

George Kararach*

ABSTRACT

Most African countries are heavily endowed with natural resources. This gives the continent both the potential for, and threat to, growth/development. Natural resources yield “rents,” or profits from their production, which are crucial for resource-led development. The literature on the “rentier state” and how resource rents interact with institutions and political economy dynamics shows that rent flows through the socio-economic system influence development outcomes. Although the natural resources sector provides significant opportunities for the near term, it also does have significant risks for future generations, and the costs and benefits of resource extraction are seldom borne equitably. Ensuring social equity is a major challenge in natural resource governance, generally falling to governments to referee trade-offs and protect the most vulnerable, including current and future generations. It is critical, therefore, for the continent to address itself to important policy questions to ensure that natural resources are a boon for Africa’s sustainable growth

Keywords: Africa; sustainable growth; rentier state; development.

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.5 1.

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* Senior Economist at the Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

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

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

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

TRANSNATIONAL INITIATIVES TOWARDS NATURAL RESOURCE GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA POST-2015

Timothy M. Shaw*

ABSTRACT

The 21st century is marked by a welcome proliferation of innovative forms of natural resource governance to advance sustainable development. This article sheds light on the background for this quite remarkable and unanticipated shift. It analyses the prospects for AMV advocacy and adoption by emerging state and non-state actors by the end of this decade, both in Africa and beyond. It examines these evolving perspectives and debates vis á vis 21st century globalization. It also identifies the unexpected and unprecedented range of transnational governance initiatives that have been proposed since the turn of the century. These continue to proliferate and compete, being refined in the process as the problematic notion of global governance continues to be a subject of considerable debate. It also extends the range of developmental challenges to include the burgeoning water-energy-food nexus.

Keywords: governance, Africa, economy, development

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jsdlp.v8i1.9

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* PhD, Princeton, is visiting professor at University of Massachusetts, Boston and Adjunct Professor at Aalborg, Carleton University, and University of Ottawa. With degrees from three continents – University of Sussex, Makerere University and Princeton University – he has held visiting positions in China, Japan, Nigeria, South Africa, United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe as well as in Canada and the US. He continues to edit IPE Series for Palgrave Macmillan/Springer and Routledge.