ABSTRACT
| This paper explores the complex relationship between natural resource abundance and Africa’s persistent underdevelopment. It traces the evolution of resource curse theory with a particular focus on African scholarship, situating it within broader debates on development and underdevelopment. While many theories explain Africa’s economic challenges, the role of resource dependence is often overlooked.
The paper, therefore, examines how natural resource wealth relates to development performance, economic and institutional indicators, and broader patterns of underdevelopment. It highlights that although resource abundance has historically contributed to rent-seeking, institutional fragility, and economic stagnation, it also presents an untapped opportunity to drive inclusive growth. By analyzing both the pitfalls and potential of resource dependence, the study underscores how prudent governance, institutional reform, and economic diversification can transform Africa’s resource wealth into a sustainable development and poverty reduction driver. The paper concludes with policy recommendations to align natural resource management with Africa’s Agenda 2063. |
|
- Introduction
The underdevelopment of Africa has attracted extensive discussions from scholars from different spectrums of academia. Many scholars attributed Africa’s precarious situation to the slave trade, colonialism, and global economic imbalances because of most African countries’ dependency on exporting primary products. Walter Roney pointed out how colonialism and the slave trade contributed to Africa’s retardation of technological advancement and underdevelopment.[1] Fieldhouse noticed this when he stated, “Britain has used earnings from colonial raw materials to bolster the pound sterling, especially vis-à-vis the dollar”.[2] The industrialization of the West was mainly supported by human capital from Africa. “Where regions have little to sell, more and more men were pulled out as labour migrants”.[3]
Other scholars, including Michael Todaro,[4] Michael Lipton,[5] and Bill Freund,[6] associated African underdevelopment with weak institutions, urban bias, corruption, small markets, and lack of human capital due to labour migrants and brain drain.
The focus on the natural resource curse, widely known as Dutch Disease, became widely known after the discovery of natural gas in the Netherlands, which helped achieve successful economic growth in the 1970s. The exploration and exportation of such ‘manna from heaven’ may adversely affect its economy. Due to the significant gas export, the demand for the Netherlands’ local currency increased, leading to appreciation and seriously affecting its competitiveness in the global market for other commodities, because other commodities became more expensive. Inflation occurred as the foreign exchange reserves increased the domestic money supply. The decline of aggregate supply in the economy increased domestic unemployment.[7]
A vast array of research has been conducted since the 1980s studying the relationship between resource wealth and economic development. It has provided strong evidence that states with abundant resource wealth perform less well than their resource-poor counterparts. However, there remains little agreement on why this is the case. In 1970, 80 percent of the developing world’s export earnings were from primary commodities; in 1993, that rate fell to 34 percent due to the fast growth of manufacturing exports in East Asia. However, three-fourths of the states in sub-Saharan Africa still rely heavily on primary commodities for at least half of their export income,[8] underscoring the region’s persistent structural vulnerability.
2. The Evolution of Resource Curse Theory in Africa
The resource curse debate has intensified in the last decades in Africa. Development scholars continue to put up theoretical arguments that Africa is rich in natural resources and still has the poorest population. Early scholars echoed that Africa’s underdevelopment is mainly attributed to corruption, lack of good governance and human rights, and colonialism, among other issues. Conventional economists believe that natural resources are a means to achieve economic prosperity. Even economic founders such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo believed that natural resources catalyze sustained economic growth. Even after independence, Africa’s deepening poverty and underdevelopment led scholars to further question the linkage of conventional resource abundance to economic and human development. Instead, a new theory of the natural resource curse surfaced because of the failure of Africa to develop despite the presence of vast resources at its disposal. The failure of Africa is generally attributed by its leaders to an unbalanced international economic system, slavery, colonialism, and high debt burdens. These failures to take responsibility for Africa’s failure by its leaders are an easy scapegoat to cover up for lack of good governance, suitable policies, political clientelism, and corruption.
“The Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region has become a classic case of the resource curse phenomenon characterized by abundant natural resources, low economic development, and misuse of natural resources”.[9] Siegle considers the natural resource curse phenomenon as a situation where countries with resource abundance are worse off than countries without natural resource endowment.[10] It is a situation where a resource-rich country fails to fully benefit from such resources to stimulate sustained economic growth and human development. However, scholars have mixed results from studies to establish whether the resource curse is a problem for Africa’s development. Some countries, like Botswana and Tanzania, have illustrated that natural resource-rich countries can sustain economic growth and development and that abundance does not generally hinder development when the right policies are in place.
In terms of Africa’s natural resources potential, Ray Bush states that:
Africa holds 42% of the world’s share of bauxite; 38% of its uranium; 42% of the world’s reserves of gold; 73% of its platinum; 88% of diamonds. The continent also has enormous reserves of non-ferrous metals like chromite (44%), manganese (82%), vanadium (95%), and cobalt (55%). Despite this abundance of resource wealth – and these figures probably underestimate resource availability because of limited surveying – there is little evidence that raw materials are translated into growth with justice and equality.[11]
Other scholars, such as Igwe and Amadi, argued that the resource curse goes beyond ecological, political, and economic factors but has ethical implications. The degree of environmental degradation undermines sources of livelihoods, human rights, and the ecosystem, thereby plunging vulnerable people into systemic poverty.[12] Indeed, with the right approach, natural resources can transform a low-value economy that relies on exports of primary commodities into one with a substantial labor-intensive manufacturing base.[13]
The natural resource curse paradigm emerged in the 1980s, emphasizing the overcrowding of development as opposed to the divergent view of other economists who consider natural resource abundance as a catalyst for economic growth and development. Scholars like W. Rostow and Viner agreed that natural resources facilitate industrialization, create markets, and encourage investment. Singer, Cordon, Corden, and many other scholars had opposing views and coined the ‘Dutch Disease’ theory of resource curse economies. Jeffery Saches and Andrew Warner conducted empirical cross-sectional studies to see the relationship between natural resources and economic growth. The results show empirical evidence confirming the adverse effects of resource dependence.[14] The resource curse debate recently focused on leveraging natural resources through proper management and value addition to support industrialization, job creation, and poverty reduction in Africa.
2.1. Theories of Africa’s Underdevelopment
Although Africa has an enormous natural resource endowment, it remains the least developed continent economically, politically, and technologically. Many scholars attributed Africa’s underdevelopment to more comprehensive problems such as slavery, colonialism, global economic imbalances, bad governance, and corruption. Walter Roney attributed Africa’s underdevelopment mainly to European imperialism and capitalist expansion by exploiting Africa’s resources.[15] As a result of colonialism, the Centre was interested in getting the human capital that would be able to take care of their agricultural plantations in the colonies to support their industrialization. “Where regions have little to sell, more and more men were pulled out as labour migrants”.[16]
The dependency theory directly contrasts the modernization theory that attributes a nation’s lack of development to its “failure to utilize its resources to stimulate economic growth and the failure of the state to establish the required institutional structures, frameworks and mechanisms that can drive and propel development”.[17] Key among the modernization theory scholars are W. Rostow, David Apter, and Gabriel Almond. Michael Lipton countered modernization theory and claimed that the primary explanation for the internal gap between rich and poor is “Urban bias”. He argues that even though leaders of developing countries sympathize with the conditions of the rural poor, they consistently concentrate scarce development resources in the urban sector.[18]
False Paradigm (see Tudaro 6th Edition, 1997) is another theory that demonstrates the dualistic nature of the world in both terms.[19] It attributes Third World underdevelopment to faulty and inappropriate advice provided by uninformed, biased, and ethnocentric international experts from the developed world. According to the Norwegian economist Eric Reinert, “those countries that have developed more successfully have often been those that have ignored WB and IMF and its funds and pursued their own path to development”.[20] Mauritius, which has a defensive economic policy, has witnessed an increasing growth rate and a reduction in inequality by 4.2%. In Malawi, removing user fees in primary education in 1994 saw an improvement in enrolment (primary education). As also in the case of China, the former chief economist of the WB, Joseph Stiglitz, states:
I think it is no accident that the only major East Asian country, China, to avert the crisis took a course directly opposite that advocated by IMF and that the country with the shortest downturn, Malaysia, also rejected and IMF strategy.[21]
Other scholars, such as Elvis, attributed Africa’s underdevelopment to inadequate or quasi-lack of financial, economic, and political autonomy, owing to their former colonizers’ continued guard on the now supposedly dependent countries.[22] Furthermore, corruption is generally considered a fundamental cause of Africa’s underdevelopment.
Another underdevelopment theory is the natural resource trap, which is the focus of this paper. Collier indicated that poor countries remain poor because of their high dependency on primary products with volatile revenue streams, which are difficult to manage. Collier considers this a natural resource trap. These countries forget normal economic activities and the need to diversify into manufacturing and service exports. Countries that rely on natural resources are more prone to autocracy, dictatorship, and civil conflicts.[23]It is evident that countries in this trap are more resource-cursed than resource-rich. Economists consider this a Dutch Disease because of its effects on other export sectors of the economy due to currency appreciation, making them less price-competitive in the international market.
3. Methodology
This study employed a purposive sampling strategy to gather data from a wide range of existing published and unpublished sources. The research design was primarily desk-based, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data through retrospective analysis. To ensure depth and breadth, the researcher consulted a diverse body of literature, including academic books and journal articles, policy reports, newspapers, and other relevant documents. This triangulation of sources provided rich insights into the relationship between natural resource abundance and Africa’s development, strengthening the reliability and validity of the findings.
4. Findings and Discussion
The paper examines the principal findings of the research and interprets them within the framework of existing theoretical and empirical literature on natural resource abundance and development. The discussion critically engages with the evidence, examining the extent to which it corroborates or contests prevailing arguments on the resource curse, institutional dynamics, and pathways to sustainable growth in Africa.
4.1. Natural Resource Dependence and Development Performance
The relation between resources and development performance attracted various scholarly interest, especially in Africa. Africa has an enormous natural resource endowment, yet it is the most retarded continent in the world.[24] This raises the question of whether natural resource endowment promotes socio-economic and political development or retards it. “Resource abundance accompanied by high poverty levels and destitution in resource-producing countries has led to an inverse relationship between resource availability and economic performance: the ‘curse of resources”.[25] Numerous studies conducted provide aggregate evidence linking natural resource abundance to poverty and underdevelopment. A study by Ian Bannon and Paul Collier indicated that resource dependence tends to make countries more susceptible to civil war due to reduced economic growth and increased poverty.[26] The crowding-out effect of the manufacturing sector and easy cash from natural resources result in the government not taking adequate steps to diversify the economy and formulate sound macroeconomic policies for sustained economic growth and job creation.
Additionally, political patronage and clientelism affect resource access and distribution, plunging a country into self-rule and bad governance, leading to more civil uprisings, political instability, and poverty. Additionally, a weak economy likely begets a fragile state, and rebellion could increase to secure social justice and access to resources. Negative factors of civil wars, such as refugees, poverty, lack of access to land and other resources, widespread diseases, and poverty, could further prolong conflicts. In Burkina Faso, these issues have “given rise to humanitarian crises, forced people to migrate, and exacerbated conflicts over land”.[27] Conflicts keep low-income countries from economic growth and development and keep them dependent on resource rents by exporting primary commodities.
Mavrotas et al. demonstrated that the consequence of resource dissipation encapsulates macroeconomic growth collapse due to the government’s wasteful rent-seeking approach.[28] The low HDI of Africa also indicates that natural resources do not significantly affect life expectancy, school enrolment, and infant mortality rate. “Even though natural resources were found to reduce poverty in general, natural resources do not appear to have any significant effects on broader measures of human development. This is further evidence of the presence of the natural resource curse in Africa”.[29] Chukwuma found that oil revenue in Nigeria has not translated into an improved quality of life.[30] The primary reason is the lack of reinvestment of resource dividends to benefit the general populace.[31] It is also evident that natural resources crowd out human resources due to a lack of domestic capacity-building policies to create strong institutions for effectively managing the resource-based economies.[32] Policies will be inadequate to address the vices of underdevelopment without a vibrant knowledge capital.
On the other hand, other studies show no evidence of the link between economic stagnation and resource abundance. Resource endowments did not prevent economic growth and development in the USA, Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden, and the Gulf countries. Hence, scholars, including Lundahl, Bulte, and others, challenged the notion of the resource curse in their cross-sectional analysis. “They distinguish between resource dependence and resource abundance, finding that resource dependence has no significant effect on growth”.[33] The primary reason for this is sound macroeconomic and institutional policies that promote growth, investment, and income redistribution from resource rents.
4.2. Institutional and Economic Indicators and Resource Rents in Africa
Vibrant institutions are essential for economic growth and development. Countries that have developed have harnessed natural resources to promote industrialization and economic growth. This is feasible because of strong institutions and sound economic policies that promote growth with the distribution and diversification of the GDP composition. However, African natural resource rents are associated with institutional problems that reinforce each other. Poor institutions enable corruption, the lack of rule of law and justice, bad quality of public services, political patronage, lack of accountability, and political instability. In fact, weak institutions beget volatility of GDP per capita and physical and human capital accumulation to promote development.
Furthermore, Africa has a sizeable number of fragile states primarily because of the management of natural resources and how it interplays with state power, contest, and conflict over controlling these resources.[34] Collier calls this the conflict trap. The conflict trap significantly hinders development, repressing economic growth and propelling refugees and internally displaced people. Civil wars heighten income reduction, and low income and slow economic growth increase the risk of civil wars. The primary reason is that the recruitment of rebel armies becomes cheap due to widespread poverty and hopelessness.[35] Poor countries remain poor because of their high dependency on primary products with volatile revenue streams, which are difficult to manage. Collier considers this a natural resource trap. These countries forget normal economic activities and the need to diversify into manufacturing and service exports. Countries that rely on natural resources are more prone to autocracy, dictatorship, and civil conflicts.[36] However, “promoting resource dependence is itself a way that elites can block the viability of challenges to incumbent power”.[37] A study by Mlambo confirms that resource rents facilitate corruption and the use of state resources for personal and political gains. He indicated that natural resource abundance is associated with higher inequality and less political freedom.[38] Dunning also illustrated natural resource curse evidence after controlling for geography, institutions, and openness. He stressed that the resource curse is mitigated if countries pursue more liberal trade policies.[39] For example, Botswana pursued diversification and forged a cordial relationship with De Beers Group to attain a degree of bargaining power to maximize revenue generation from its resource production.[40] Therefore, strong institutions and good leadership are crucial to improving Africa’s economic and institutional indicators concerning natural resource rents.
4.3. Resource Abundance and Underdevelopment
The paradox of widespread poverty amid resource abundance baffled scholars and development practitioners—Africa’s blessing in terms of natural resources is indeed a curse and a cause for underdevelopment. “By paying attention to the wealth created by human labour out of nature, one can immediately appreciate that very few underdeveloped countries are lacking in the natural resources which could go into making a better life”.[41] However, resource abundance mainly benefits the political elites who use these resources for political patronage, self-aggrandizement, and self-perpetuating rule. The least performing countries in terms of HDI are found in Africa, likewise, the fragile states. In fact, 38 of the 43 countries designated as the poorest are African countries with enormous resource potential to improve their standard of living. “The fact is that Africa has never been able to exploit its natural wealth systematically and that most of the wealth it now produces is not being retained within Africa for the benefit of Africans”.[42] “People seek political rents when trying to obtain benefits through their political influence”.[43]
Resource abundance has indeed generally contributed to underdevelopment in Africa. For instance, DR Congo is endowed with exceptional natural resources, such as hydropower potential, cobalt, and copper, with the second-largest rainforest. Nevertheless, it is among the five poorest nations in the world. DRC ranks 164 out of 174 countries on the 2020 Human Capital Index.[44] This further demonstrates the adverse effect of resource abundance on human development. In Nigeria, Inglin et al. showed that adverse effects are associated with natural resources and that it cannot transform its oil wealth into sustainable development.[45] In fact, oil wealth plays a significant role in weakening state capacity.[46] This is even more evident when analysing the Niger Delta as a state with the highest oil production. However, the Niger Delta is among the poorest despite its contribution to the nation’s wealth. “The region epitomizes one of the most extreme cases of poverty and unemployment level in the country”.[47]
There is a consensus that corruption is a leading cause of underdevelopment in Africa. Endemic corruption is enforced by resource abundance through mismanagement, clientelism, and self-perpetuating rule sustained by corrupt practices.[48] These practices are responsible for the high level of insecurity, conflict, and the crowding of investment for economic growth and job creation for poverty reduction. There cannot be development amidst conflict and political instability in a country. Hence, resource abundance promotes bad governance, insecurity, corruption, and a lack of diversification of the economy due to heavy reliance on easy cash from primary products. It also fosters inequality and brain drain, leading to further underdevelopment. Therefore, it is evident that resource abundance has resulted in underdevelopment in Africa rather than development, which is the opposite of the case in other countries such as Norway and Sweden. The pursuit of illegal migration through dangerous routes such as the Atlantic Ocean, leading to thousands of African youths wanting to search for greener pastures in Europe, indicates that Africa’s resource abundance is a curse and a major cause of underdevelopment and retardation.
4.4. Turning Abundance into Blessing
Africa is endowed with enormous natural resources, which could be turned from a curse to a blessing for the upliftment of its populace. Although the current predicament is linked to the resource curse, it is not cast in stone. Countries like the Gulf States, Norway, Sweden, etc., were able to reap the benefits through trade openness, good institutions, and high investments in exploration technology.
Frederick van der Ploeg states that:
On the other hand, the curse seems more severe in presidential democracies. Resource-rich countries are also vulnerable to the notorious volatility of commodity prices, especially if their financial system is not well developed. Recent research, taking account of the endogeneity of resource dependence, suggests that volatility may be the quintessence of the resource curse.[49]
In Africa, countries like Libya (before the invasion of NATO), Tanzania, and Botswana were, to a certain extent, able to break the barriers of the resource curse to promote development and improve the quality of life. The cases of Zambia and Botswana indicated that the resource curse in developing countries could be avoided if social and institutional structures were conducive.[50]
The success of Botswana has depended on the interaction effects of five variables: the price stability of the resource (diamonds); social cohesion; the strength of the institutions built on this social foundation; the formulation and implementation of economic policies that used resource rents wisely by saving and investing them appropriately; and the absence of pressures and problems associated with rent-seeking and corruption. Despite facing some challenges, the result has been an exemplary case of resource-dependent economic development, but difficult to emulate.[51]
There is an urgent need for strict fiscal discipline and the building of vibrant institutions to tackle bad governance and corruption in resource-rich countries in Africa. The creation of a National Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), as in the case of Norway, for effective redistribution, investment, and management of resource rents, is well overdue. These funds could provide the needed infrastructure and social services to promote human development, job creation, and economic growth.
Chukwuma recommended that the SWF deposits be transparently managed and withdrawals supervised by the National Assembly to minimize corruption and reckless spending of oil revenue in Nigeria.[52]
Much of Africa’s potential, and the causes of its current difficulties, are hidden in the shade of major misconceptions about the slave trade, colonialism, the World Bank, and so on, which simply need to be whittled away. Individual Africans have risen to the challenges confronting them for decades, but their governments have not; even worse, most leaders have stood in the way of individual initiative and innovative solutions, fearing some loss of control. African talents at home and abroad need to be given a chance to prosper.[53]
To this effect, resource rents could be used to build and strengthen local capacities and talents and promote innovation and SMEs for gainful youth employment. This could be achieved through a sector-specific targeted program to reduce poverty and inequality through resource rent distribution. Velde et al. illustrated the importance of sectoral focus growth in reducing poverty. They advocated to “diversify away from natural resources, whose terms of trade are worsening, and away from dependence on volatile commodity prices”.[54] Focusing on food security and value addition propels competitive advantage for the continent and attracts further capital investment for sustained economic growth and development. This will ease the fierce competition as a result of liberalization and globalization.[55]
5. Conclusion
It is problematic to reap the benefits of resource endowment in Africa without good leadership that promotes good governance and builds robust institutions to manage natural resource endowment effectively and efficiently. This is so because resource rent is a viable source of income for leaders to stay longer in power through political patronage. Africa can “assure its peoples a real improvement in their lives and a greater harmony between their physical resources, cultural traditions, natural environments, and material expectations” through exemplary leadership and sound policies.[56] Results from the study conducted by Mlambo showed a positive relationship between the efficient functioning of the government and resource rents.[57] Furthermore, “Improving governance means building a better bureaucracy, increasing adherence to the rule of law, reducing corruption, and sustainably managing expenditure and revenue generation”.[58]
Although resource endowment may create the potential for development, policies are needed to ensure that economic growth improves human development. This would require development planning to link investment with creating jobs, eradicating poverty and inequality, and achieving other conditions for development, such as improved status for women. In effect, African countries would have to employ a mix of policy options that address the challenges of resource abundance in economic growth and social and human capital formation through building a diverse economy alongside their extractive industries to improve the quality of life.
6. Implications for Intergovernmental Action
The literature and various studies have demonstrated that resource abundance is a major cause of underdevelopment in Africa. It enhances corruption, bad governance, self-perpetuating rule, mismanagement, crowding out investment, and economic diversification. However, resource abundance could catalyse economic development and poverty alleviation if proper institutions are built and sound policies implemented to utilize resource rents effectively. Infrastructural development and social services enhancement projects are critical for Africa’s sustained development, economic growth, and improving quality of life. “A strong infrastructure spreads economic opportunities and social progress, permits a more even sharing of the fruits of development, and may also reduce the potential for discord”.[59]
Policy options to turn the resource curse into a blessing include promoting agriculture and value addition, developing rural development policies, and strengthening political institutions to effectively implement development programs to eradicate poverty and improve the quality of life.[60] Policies are the essential guide in the allocation of scarce resources.[61] Velde et al. indicated that the decline in poverty and increase in economic growth in Zambia were primarily due to the promotion of agriculture and rural development policies, which led to an increase in output and income for the rural poor.[62]
Promoting good governance, transparency, and accountability is critical to turning the resource curse into a blessing. Collier highlighted the need for excellent governance and economic policies to help the growth process and alluded to the need for critical, educated people from within the society to lead a productive reform strategy.[63] Governments should build a more realistic social impact investment through public-private partnerships across countries through results-based financing, outcomes-based approaches, market-based solutions, and different public-private partnerships.[64] Furthermore, it is essential to build the capacities of the poor and simultaneously bridge the social divide by promoting social cohesion, trust, and political stability through equitable access to natural resources through the institution of the Sovereign Wealth Fund. Therefore, the state may be a primary development agent, an enabling structure, or a structural obstacle to development. The government’s role is to diversify the economy and reinvest resource rents in the productive sectors of the economy, promote the rule of law, and ease of doing business to attract more greenfield foreign direct investment for economic growth and poverty reduction.
Finally, it may be broad to enrich and fulfill the lives of all the people through increased empowerment, the eradication of poverty, and the optimal distribution of natural resource wealth. This is only possible by investing in the economy’s productive sectors to generate resources supporting social and human capital formation, since both are necessary for development.
6. Conflict of Interest
The author states that there is no conflict of interest.
7. Acknowledgment
I acknowledge all the support from Euclid University in completing the major paper as part of my coursework from which this paper is derived.
References
Achuo, Elvis Dze, Tii Njivukuh Nchofoung, Simplice Asongu, and Gildas Dohba Dinga. ‘Unravelling the Mysteries of Underdevelopment in Africa’. African Governance and Development Institute (AGDI), Yaoundé, AGDI Working Paper, no. No. WP/21/073 (2021): 36.
Adeboye, Titus. ‘UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE IN AFRICA’. UNESCO, 1999, 25.
AfDB. ‘Afribank Ch4 Africa’s Natural Resources: The Paradox of Plenty’. Https://Www.Afdb.Org, 2007. https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/(E)%20AfricanBank%202007%20Ch4.pdf.
Arezki, Rabah, [email protected], Frederik van der Ploeg, and [email protected]. ‘Can the Natural Resource Curse Be Turned Into a Blessing? T+L3479he Role of Trade Policies and Institutions’. IMF Working Papers 07, no. 55 (2007): 1. https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451866193.001.
Badeeb, Ramez, Hooi Hooi Lean, and Jeremy Clark. ‘The Evolution of the Natural Resource Curse Thesis: A Critical Literature Survey’. Elsevier, Resource Policy, vol. 51, no. Resource Policy (2016): 123–34.
Bannon, Ian, and Paul Collier. Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions. World Bank Publications, 2003.
Bräutigam, Deborah A., and Stephen Knack. ‘Foreign Aid, Institutions, and Governance in Sub‐Saharan Africa’. Economic Development and Cultural Change 52, no. 2 (2004): 255–85. https://doi.org/10.1086/380592.
Brown, Ibi. ‘The Paradox of Plenty: The Political and Developmental Implications of Natural Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa’. Africa Portal, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), 1 September 2011. https://www.africaportal.org/publications/the-paradox-of-plenty-the-political-and-developmental-implications-of-natural-resources-in-sub-saharan-africa/.
Bush, Ray. ‘Scrambling to the Bottom? Mining, Resources & Underdevelopment’. Review of African Political Economy 35, no. 117 (2008): 361–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240802410968.
Calderisi, Robert. The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working. 1., Paperback ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Chukwuma, Ijere Thomas. The Resource Curse in Nigeria: Lessons and Policy Option. 2015, 6.
Collier, Paul. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. 1st edition. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Corden, W. M. ‘Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation’. Oxford Economic Papers 36, no. 3 (1984): 359–80.
Crain, Audria. ‘The Resource Curse: The Cases of Botswana and Zambia’. Graduate Studies, University of Denver, 2010.
Demissie, Meaza Zerihun. ‘The Natural Resource Curse in Sub-Saharan Africa: Transparency and International Initiatives’. University of Southern Mississippi, 2014.
Dunning, Thad. ‘Resource Dependence, Economic Performance, and Political Stability’. Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 4 (2005): 451–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002705277521.
Fieldhouse, David Kenneth. ‘Merchant Capital and Economic Decolonization: The United Africa Company 1929-1987’. OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Freund, Bill. ‘Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines’. Atlantic Highlands, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Igwe, Prince, and Luke Amadi. ‘Natural Resource Conflict and the Real Cause of the Resource Curse in Africa: A Political Economy Approach’. In Conflict and Climate Change. Accent, 2022.
Inglin, Andrea, and NADEL MAS-Zyklus. Avoiding the Resource Curse in Ghana: Lessons from Nigeria. n.d., 18.
Kumlin, Staffan, and Bo Rothstein. ‘Investing in Social Capital: The Impact of Welfare State Institutions’. Goteborg University, 2003, 31.
LifeGate, dir. Fighting for Land in Burkina Faso, the Hopes of a People Battling Desertification and Violence. 2019. 18:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-rFNv-sGEQ.
Lipton, Michael. Why Poor People Stay Poor: A Study of Urban Bias in World Development. Australian National University Press, 1977.
Martin, Guy. ‘THE WEST, NATURAL RESOURCES AND POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN AFRICA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE’. Journal of Third World Studies 22, no. 1 (2022): 40.
Mavrotas, George, Syed Mansoob Murshed, and Sebastian Torres. ‘Natural Resource Dependence and Economic Performance in the 1970–2000 Periodrode_597 124..138’. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2011.
Mlambo, C. ‘Politics and the Natural Resource Curse: Evidence from Selected African States’. Cogent Social Sciences 8, no. 1 (2022): 2035911. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2035911.
Nathaniel, Oladayo. ‘CORRUPTION AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA A DISCOURSE APPROACH’. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management II, no. 10 (2014): 16.
Odalonu, Boris. Paradox of Poverty in the Midst of Abundant Resources: The Politics of Oil Resources and Renewed Insurgency in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. 1 January 2019.
Ojo, Emmanuel Oladipo. Underdevelopment in Africa: Theories and Facts. 41, no. 1 (2016): 15.
Ploeg, Frederick van der. ‘Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?’ Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 2 (2011): 366–420.
Reinert, Erik S. How Rich Countries Got Rich… and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor. Hachette UK, 2019.
Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973. 1973, 453.
Ross, Michael L. ‘The Political Economy of the Resource Curse’. World Politics 51, no. 2 (1999): 297–322.
Sen, Soma, Jemel Aguilar, and Jeremy Goldbach. ‘Does Social Capital Act as a Buffer Against HIV Risk Among Migrant Men in Sub-Saharan Africa?’ Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services 9 (April 2010): 190–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/15381501003795790.
Siegle, Joseph. ‘Governance Strategies to Remedy the Natural Resource Curse’. International Social Science Journal 57 (May 2005): 45–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.00705.x.
Stiglitz, Joseph. Globalization and Its Discontents. Penguin, 2002.
Todaro, Michael P. Economic Development. 6th ed. Addison-Wesley, 1997.
Todaro, Michael P., and Stephen C. Smith. Economic Development. 9th ed. The Addison-Wesley Series in Economics. Pearson Addison Wesley, 2006.
Velde, Dirk Willem te, Michael Warner, and Sheila Page. ‘Growth and Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies’. ODI, 2004, 53.
Wilson, Karen E. Investing for Social Impact in Developing Countries. Development Co-Operation Report ID 3125707. Development Co-Operation Report. OECD, 2016. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3125707.
World Bank. ‘Overview- The World Bank in DRC’. Text/HTML. World Bank, 2022. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/drc/overview.
العجوزة, ایمان علی محفوظ, and احمد صبری ابوزید. ‘Africa: A Land of Wealth and a Land of Poverty: Why the Richest Resource Continent Suffers from Poverty.’ مجلة السیاسة والاقتصاد 12, no. 1 (2021): 1–46. https://doi.org/10.21608/jocu.2021.61897.1102.
[1] Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973, 1973, 151–65.
[2] David Kenneth Fieldhouse, ‘Merchant Capital and Economic Decolonization: The United Africa Company 1929-1987’, OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, 1994.
[3] Bill Freund, ‘Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines’, Atlantic Highlands, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
[4] Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, Economic Development, 9th ed, The Addison-Wesley Series in Economics (Pearson Addison Wesley, 2006).
[5] Michael Lipton, Why Poor People Stay Poor: A Study of Urban Bias in World Development (Australian National University Press, 1977).
[6] Freund, ‘Bill Freund’.
[7] W. M. Corden, ‘Booming Sector and Dutch Disease Economics: Survey and Consolidation’, Oxford Economic Papers 36, no. 3 (1984): 359–80.
[8] Michael L. Ross, ‘The Political Economy of the Resource Curse’, World Politics 51, no. 2 (1999): 297–322.
[9] AfDB, ‘Afribank Ch4 Africa’s Natural Resources: The Paradox of Plenty’, Https://Www.Afdb.Org, 2007, https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/(E)%20AfricanBank%202007%20Ch4.pdf.
[10] Joseph Siegle, ‘Governance Strategies to Remedy the Natural Resource Curse’, International Social Science Journal 57 (May 2005): 45–55, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2009.00705.x.
[11] Ray Bush, ‘Scrambling to the Bottom? Mining, Resources & Underdevelopment’, Review of African Political Economy 35, no. 117 (2008): 361, https://doi.org/10.1080/03056240802410968.
[12] Prince Igwe and Luke Amadi, ‘Natural Resource Conflict and the Real Cause of the Resource Curse in Africa: A Political Economy Approach’, in Conflict and Climate Change (Accent, 2022), 147.
[13] AfDB, ‘Afribank Ch4 Africa’s Natural Resources: The Paradox of Plenty’, 1.
[14] Ramez Badeeb et al., ‘The Evolution of the Natural Resource Curse Thesis: A Critical Literature Survey’, Elsevier, Resource Policy, vol. 51, no. Resource Policy (2016): 124.
[15] Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973, 10.
[16] Freund, ‘Bill Freund’.
[17] Emmanuel Oladipo Ojo, Underdevelopment in Africa: Theories and Facts, 41, no. 1 (2016): 92.
[18] Lipton, Why Poor People Stay Poor.
[19] Michael P. Todaro, Economic Development, 6th ed. (Addison-Wesley, 1997).
[20] Erik S. Reinert, How Rich Countries Got Rich… and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor (Hachette UK, 2019).
[21] Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (Penguin, 2002), 126.
[22] Elvis Dze Achuo et al., ‘Unravelling the Mysteries of Underdevelopment in Africa’, African Governance and Development Institute (AGDI), Yaoundé, AGDI Working Paper, no. No. WP/21/073 (2021): 5.
[23] Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, 1st edition (Oxford University Press, 2008), 51.
[24] Robert Calderisi, The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn’t Working, 1., paperback ed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 229.
[25] Bush, ‘Scrambling to the Bottom?’, 361.
[26] Ian Bannon and Paul Collier, Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions (World Bank Publications, 2003), 20.
[27] Fighting for Land in Burkina Faso, the Hopes of a People Battling Desertification and Violence, directed by LifeGate, 2019, 18:34, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-rFNv-sGEQ.
[28] George Mavrotas et al., ‘Natural Resource Dependence and Economic Performance in the 1970–2000 Periodrode_597 124..138’, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2011, 137.
[29] ایمان علی محفوظ العجوزة and احمد صبری ابوزید, ‘Africa: A Land of Wealth and a Land of Poverty: Why the Richest Resource Continent Suffers from Poverty.’, مجلة السیاسة والاقتصاد 12, no. 1 (2021): 34, https://doi.org/10.21608/jocu.2021.61897.1102.
[30] Ijere Thomas Chukwuma, The Resource Curse in Nigeria: Lessons and Policy Option, 2015, 2.
[31] Ibi Brown, ‘The Paradox of Plenty: The Political and Developmental Implications of Natural Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa’, Africa Portal, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), 1 September 2011, https://www.africaportal.org/publications/the-paradox-of-plenty-the-political-and-developmental-implications-of-natural-resources-in-sub-saharan-africa/.
[32] Meaza Zerihun Demissie, “The Natural Resource Curse in Sub-Saharan Africa: Transparency and International Initiatives” (Mississippi, University of Southern Mississippi, 2014), 3.
[33] Mavrotas et al., ‘Natural Resource Dependence and Economic Performance in the 1970–2000 Periodrode_597 124..138’, 137.
[34] AfDB, ‘Afribank Ch4 Africa’s Natural Resources: The Paradox of Plenty’.
[35] Collier, The Bottom Billion, 20.
[36] Collier, The Bottom Billion, 51.
[37] Thad Dunning, ‘Resource Dependence, Economic Performance, and Political Stability’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, no. 4 (2005): 475, https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002705277521.
[38] C. Mlambo, ‘Politics and the Natural Resource Curse: Evidence from Selected African States’, Cogent Social Sciences 8, no. 1 (2022): 2, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2035911.
[39] Rabah Arezki et al., ‘Can the Natural Resource Curse Be Turned Into a Blessing? T+L3479he Role of Trade Policies and Institutions’, IMF Working Papers 07, no. 55 (2007): 26, https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451866193.001.
[40] Dunning, ‘Resource Dependence, Economic Performance, and Political Stability’, 460–61.
[41] Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Walter Rodney 1973, 34.
[42] Guy Martin, ‘THE WEST, NATURAL RESOURCES AND POPULATION CONTROL POLICIES IN AFRICA IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE’, Journal of Third World Studies 22, no. 1 (2022): 96.
[43] Badeeb et al., ‘The Evolution of the Natural Resource Curse Thesis’, 126.
[44] World Bank, ‘Overview- The World Bank in DRC’, Text/HTML, World Bank, 2022, https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/drc/overview.
[45] Andrea Inglin and NADEL MAS-Zyklus, Avoiding the Resource Curse in Ghana: Lessons from Nigeria, n.d., 13.
[46] Mlambo, ‘Politics and the Natural Resource Curse’, 4.
[47] Boris Odalonu, Paradox of Poverty in the Midst of Abundant Resources: The Politics of Oil Resources and Renewed Insurgency in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, 1 January 2019, 94–95.
[48] Oladayo Nathaniel, ‘CORRUPTION AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA A DISCOURSE APPROACH’, International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management II, no. 10 (2014): 1.
[49] Frederick van der Ploeg, ‘Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?’, Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 2 (2011): 406.
[50] Audria Crain, ‘The Resource Curse: The Cases of Botswana and Zambia’ (Graduate Studies, University of Denver, 2010), 95.
[51] Crain, ‘The Resource Curse: The Cases of Botswana and Zambia’, 95.
[52] Chukwuma, The Resource Curse in Nigeria: Lessons and Policy Option, 41.
[53] Calderisi, The Trouble with Africa, 224.
[54] Dirk Willem te Velde et al., ‘Growth and Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies’, ODI, 2004, 21.
[55] Titus Adeboye, ‘UNDERDEVELOPMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE ABUNDANCE IN AFRICA’, UNESCO, 1999, 13.
[56] Calderisi, The Trouble with Africa, 227.
[57] Mlambo, 13.
[58] Deborah A. Bräutigam and Stephen Knack, ‘Foreign Aid, Institutions, and Governance in Sub‐Saharan Africa’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 52, no. 2 (2004): 256, https://doi.org/10.1086/380592.
[59] Calderisi, The Trouble with Africa, 216.
[60] Frederick van der Ploeg, “Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?,” Journal of Economic Literature 49, no. 2 (2011): 406.
[61] Soma Sen et al., ‘Does Social Capital Act as a Buffer Against HIV Risk Among Migrant Men in Sub-Saharan Africa?’, Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services 9 (April 2010): 205, https://doi.org/10.1080/15381501003795790.
[62] Velde et al., ‘Growth and Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies’, 37.
[63] Collier, The Bottom Billion, 71.
[64] Karen E. Wilson, Investing for Social Impact in Developing Countries, Development Co-operation Report ID 3125707, Development Co-Operation Report (OECD, 2016), 109, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3125707.
