Natural resources overview

The exploitation and management of natural resources in conflict areas (EMNR) is a priority area of the African peace and security agenda. The APSA locates the issue of resource exploitation within the nexus between peace, security and socio-economic development. Despite being endowed with some of the most sought after natural resources in the world, Africa has, in the past, failed to transform its enormous economic potential and wealth into tangible benefits in terms of human security, sustainable peace and development. Instead, the abundance of natural resources has become what some analysts describe as a “curse” because it has led and contributed to the use of violence and gross human rights violations as a means to gain access to, and control over, natural wealth, and entrenched the practices that seek to profiteer from Africa’s vast natural resource base at the expense of continental peace, security and development. To turn Africa’s resources into blessings calls for the generation of a framework that guarantees the translation of their value into benefits for its people and states.

The AU-NEPAD Peace and Security consultation of February 2003 prioritised the need to generate “standards for application in the exploitation and management of Africa’s natural resources in situations of conflicts,” in recognition of the link between access, control, exploitation and management of resources on the one hand, and the onset, escalation, and prolongation of conflicts on the other. Natural resource governance occupies the nexus between peace, security, stability and development, and leaders have recognised that through good governance, the continent’s natural resource wealth can be harnessed in support of the African renaissance vision of growth and regeneration. Given the myriad local, national, regional and international interests competing over the natural wealth of the continent, common standards are essential for the prevention of conflict and promotion of sustainable development.

Pax Africa is building upon previous work in the SADC region regarding the governance of natural resources, in line with the continental priority of developing minimum standards to ensure that Africa’s natural resource wealth contributes to its peoples’ security, and sustainable peace and development.