Mainstreaming Mineral Wealth in Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategies

Abstract

Many studies claim that mineral resources impact negatively on economic growth particularly in developing countries. This paper briefly reviews this argument (the natural resources curse hypothesis) and subjects it to examination. The paper argues that poor performance is not an inherent characteristic of minerals‐driven economies. It considers mineral endowments a capital that can spur growth and reduce poverty in developing countries if deployed under appropriate conditions. The paper identifies the benefit streams of mining and the challenges for their equitable creation, investment, distribution and management. It articulates the conditions, success factors and strategies to maximizing the contribution of the minerals sector to growth and development in Africa. The entry points include creating a conducive and competitive policy, legal and regulatory environment and frameworks for business development; improving governance and management systems anchored on strong and capable institutions; opening up opportunities including capitalizing on the low entry barriers offered by artisanal and small‐scale mining; sharpening investment decisions; including the minerals sector in poverty reduction strategies and other national development plans; promoting linkages between the minerals sector and other sectors of the economy; empowering communities; establishing coalitions of change; and facilitating knowledge and competencies creation for more local processing and value addition.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 40 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.