MANAGING OF OIL, GAS AND MINING RESOURCES FOR DEVELOPMENT
By Daniel F. Runde (Center for Strategic & International Studies)
In 2013, global mining revenues were roughly $731 billion, or about five and a half times total annual official development assistance (ODA). Much of this activity is taking place in the developing world. For example, 51 of 54 African countries have ongoing or planned oil and gas exploration operations and a little over one quarter of Africans live in a country where natural resources accounts for 80 percent of all exports. Many of these countries citizens are often the world’s poorest and its governments are the least politically stable; according to discussions from the recent Annual Democracy Forum in Botswana in November, roughly 40 percent of conflicts that threaten stability in developing countries are directly linked to inequitable resource exploitation.