The Paradox of Governance and Natural Resource Rents in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Paradox of Governance and Natural Resource Rents in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Simplice Asongu
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2022
Genre:
ISBN:

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In this study, nexuses between governance and natural resource rents are assessed in 44 sub-Saharan African countries using data for the period 1996-2016. The empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions. The findings show that political governance (entailing “voice & accountability†and political stability) and institutional governance (consisting of the rule of law and corruption control) have a negative effect on resource rents. However, if the conception and definition of attendant governance variables are understood within the framework that such variables are negatively skewed, it becomes apparent that bad governance reduces resource rents. This conclusion clarifies the paradox because negatively skewed governance variables are understood to be representing poor governance. By extension, the negative effect of the rule of law or corruption control on natural resource rents should be the negative effect of the absence of the rule of law or lack of corruption control on natural resource rents. The paradox is further clarified in the light of specific components of the governance dynamics. While the clarification of the paradox is relative, especially if the sample is compared with countries for which governance indicators are largely skewed in the positive direction, from an absolute perspective (i.e. exclusively from the sampled countries), the indicators of the World Bank are standardized such that negative skewness does not affect the estimated results. Another worthwhile argument with which to explain the paradox is that governance has more impact on the nonresource component of GDP.

Routledge Handbook of Natural Resource Governance in Africa

Routledge Handbook of Natural Resource Governance in Africa
Author: Hany Besada
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2024-03-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1003845339

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The Routledge Handbook of Natural Resource Governance in Africa provides a comprehensive analysis of African natural resource governance, stretching across the continent, and encompassing water, land, extractive resources, and mining. Africa’s natural resources are not only crucial for the continent from an economic, environmental, and political perspective, but they are also of significant geopolitical importance, with direct implication for meeting the global challenges outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Whether an abundance of natural resources proves to be a curse or a blessing depends on the nature, extent, and outcome of the effort and experience of an individual country in governing and managing such assets. It is with this in mind that this ground-breaking handbook brings together experts from across the field of natural resource development to reflect on the varied regime types and paradigms within the continent’s natural resource sectors, the specific challenges they face, and their role within global value chains. The book first considers governance for sustainable development and discourses of land and development financing, before going on to investigate the regulatory and policy impacts, and socioeconomic implications of natural resource management. Finally, the Handbook situates the African continent within the emerging global energy transition; examining trends in South-South cooperation, and new frontiers for the harnessing of critical tools in a sustainable future for natural resource governance and management. Overall, the Handbook’s in-depth analysis provides a unique blend of realism and optimism, highlighting the importance of building a new sustainable African resource narrative for shared prosperity. The handbook will be an essential read for researchers and policy makers with an interest in sustainable development and natural resource governance in Africa.

Governance for Justice and Environmental Sustainability

Governance for Justice and Environmental Sustainability
Author: Merle Sowman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2014-02-24
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136324127

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Understanding the governance of complex social-ecological systems is vital in a world faced with rapid environmental change, conflicts over dwindling natural resources, stark disparities between rich and poor and the crises of sustainability. Improved understanding is also essential to promote governance approaches that are underpinned by justice and equity principles and that aim to reduce inequality and benefit the most marginalised sectors of society. This book is concerned with enhancing the understanding of governance in relation to social justice and environmental sustainability across a range of natural resource sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa. By examining governance across various sectors, it reveals the main drivers that influence the nature of governance, the principles and norms that shape it, as well as the factors that constrain or enable achievement of justice and sustainability outcomes. The book also illuminates the complex relationships that exist between various governance actors at different scales, and the reality and challenge of plural legal systems in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. The book comprises 16 chapters, 12 of them case studies recounting experiences in the forest, wildlife, fisheries, conservation, mining and water sectors of diverse countries: Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Cameroon.Through insights from these studies, the book seeks to draw lessons from the praxis of natural resource governance in Sub-Saharan Africa and to contribute to debates on how governance can be strengthened and best configured to meet the needs of the poor, in a way that is both socially just and ecologically sustainable.

Economic Change Governance and Natural Resource Wealth

Economic Change Governance and Natural Resource Wealth
Author: David Reed
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 109
Release: 2023-04-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000939545

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This volume analyzes the ways in which natural resource wealth has shaped authoritarian political regimes and statist economic systems in the countries of southern Africa in the post-colonial period. It consists of five essays. The first sets out the historical framework and emergence of natural resources as the crucial driver of economies in sub-Saharan Africa. Three essays, drawing on in-country research, focus on Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They show how this explains the economic evolution of those countries - in particular, the impacts of economic and institutional changes on the bulk of the population, the rural poor. The final essay explores the nature of the changes and their neoliberal economic context, and the ways in which their harmful consequences might be relieved.

Revisiting Environmental and Natural Resource Questions in Sub-Saharan Africa

Revisiting Environmental and Natural Resource Questions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Author: Wilson Akpan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2017-06-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1443878618

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Based on case studies in Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa, this book revisits some of the dilemmas and paradoxes associated with the development, management and utilisation of environmental resources, as well as lacklustre official handling of climate change-related challenges, in Sub-Saharan Africa. On the subject of natural resource exploitation, in particular, the book revisits scholarly debates and specific practices around compensation, benefit- and burden-sharing, local participation and space-place dynamics. It highlights fundamental ambiguities in the ways the dominant discourses and policy responses have been framed and mobilised, and examines epistemic and ideational incongruences that have hobbled and sometimes negated the effectiveness of otherwise well-intentioned interventions. On climate change, the book revisits debates around the vulnerability-assets nexus with regard to mitigation and adaptation, as well as the intersection of climate information and livelihoods in agro-based settings. The contradictions, gaps and limitations of climate change policies and strategies in different regions are re-examined based on new data. In the last few years, the Environment and Natural Resources Working Group of the South African Sociological Association (SASA) has intensified efforts to go beyond the annual SASA Congresses and the production of journal articles, in making the research agendas of its members more visible to the global scholarly and policy community. This book is one result of such efforts. It calls for a constant questioning of orthodoxies and the promotion of ethnographically sensitive and epistemologically nuanced scholarly and policy approaches to developmental challenges in Africa, especially in relation to environmental resources and environmental change.

Governing Natural Resources for Africa’s Development

Governing Natural Resources for Africa’s Development
Author: Hany Gamil Besada
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315514230

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Bringing together some of the world’s leading thinkers and policy experts in the area of natural resource governance and management in Africa, this volume addresses the most critical policy issues affecting the continent’s ability to manage and govern its precious resources. The narrative of the book is solutions-driven, as experts weigh on specific issues within the context of Africa’s natural resource governance and offer appropriate policy recommendations on how to best manage the continent’s resources. This is a must-read for government policy makers in industrialized economies and, more importantly, in Africa and emerging economies, as well as for academic researchers working in the field, extractive companies operating on the continent, extractive industry and trade associations, and multilateral and donor aid institutions.

Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa

Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa
Author: Hany Gamil Besada
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2021-04-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0228007089

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A country's abundant natural resources may serve as a curse or a blessing, with the outcome often dependent on prevailing governance structures and experience managing these assets. Despite natural resource advantages, many African countries have failed to transform their enormous economic potential and wealth into tangible benefits such as sustainable socio-economic development, human security, or peace. Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa reevaluates the role that foreign state-owned and private-sector actors play in resource-rich states – whether stable, post-conflict, or fragile – in sub-Saharan Africa. Through research and an analysis of in-depth interviews with local stakeholders in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia, Hany Besada explains how foreign state-owned and private-sector corporations have contributed to economic growth at both the national and local levels in different resource-rich countries. This book reveals the unique challenges and opportunities created by these investors, demonstrating that new policies in business practices and operations have the potential to generate sustainable development and positive economic transformation. Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa puts forward a novel framework for understanding the role of private economic actors in extractive industries in Africa and sheds new light on foreign private-sector contributions to capacity building and economic development.

Natural Resource Sovereignty and the Right to Development in Africa

Natural Resource Sovereignty and the Right to Development in Africa
Author: Carol Chi Ngang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2021-08-25
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1000433730

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This book explores the nexus between natural resources ownership and the right to development in Africa. The right to sovereignty over natural resources and the right to development are recognised and protected in an extensive framework of international, regional and domestic instruments. They guarantee people's entitlement to fully and freely utilise their natural resources as a means of subsistence and for economic, social and cultural development. Yet, despite the abundance of natural resources in Africa a majority of the people on the continent remain largely impoverished. This book articulates the central argument that to achieve the right to development in Africa requires appropriate governance of the continent’s natural resources to which the people of Africa are guaranteed sovereign ownership. With case study illustrations from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, chapters explore the normative measures, specific guarantees and community entitlements to natural resources for the realisation of the right to development. The book will be an invaluable guide to scholars and postgraduate students of Natural Resources, Development and African studies as well as policymakers and practitioners in these areas.

Boom, Bust or Prosperity? Managing Sub-Saharan Africa’s Natural Resource Wealth

Boom, Bust or Prosperity? Managing Sub-Saharan Africa’s Natural Resource Wealth
Author: Charlotte J. Lundgren
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2013-12-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1475579411

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Sizeable natural resource endowments and potentially large financial inflows from their extraction provide an unparalleled opportunity for economic growth and development in a growing number of sub-Saharan African countries. Empirical evidence suggests, however, that translating this resource wealth into stronger economic performance and a higher standard of living has proven challenging. Much has been written about the resource curse. This publication focuses on solutions to the challenges and outlines the main policy considerations and options in managing natural resource wealth, drawing on experience within and outside sub-Saharan Africa and referring closely to the latest analysis and policy advice in this area by the IMF, the World Bank, and leading academic research. A key feature of each chapter is a recommended reading list for those who wish additional, more in-depth material on these issues to further inform policymakers and other stakeholders on the theoretical and analytical underpinnings of the policy advice.