Oil and mining revenues: from curse to blessing for developing countries: challenges to governments, companies and NGOs developing countries

This report examines the complexities of the "resource curse", which has led to corruption, conflict and severe environmental damage in many resource rich countries.

The report presents three key arguments:

• good national governance - or its absence - is critical. The development of natural resources almost inevitably involves complex trade-offs between conflicting objectives. Debates over the correct balance - for example between local and national interests - cause fierce controversy, and even developed nations do not always find the best answers. Nevertheless, countries with robust state institutions, consultative traditions - and with informed, active civil societies - are better placed to find equitable solutions
• national governments no longer operate in isolation. A major petroleum or mining project requires permission from the host government, but typically involves a consortium of international companies, usually from more than one country. It may draw on the support of an international financial institution, as well as private markets in a number of jurisdictions. The companies that manage the project will need to engage with NGOs both from the host country and in, say, Europe and the US
• therefore, the search for solutions to the "resource curse" involves a range of different political and social actors: in government and out of it; in the host country and abroad; in business and in civil society. Practical solutions to the curse are likely to involve partnerships between commercial, governmental and civil society sectors, often in more than one country.

[adopted from author]