Extractivism and transition in Africa : opportunities and challenges

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Existence of natural resources in majority of African countries has been identified to support furtherdevelopment due to continuously increase in commodity revenues. However, the resource cursepresents critical aspects of resource intensive economies such as short-term benefits ofcommodity revenues, limited economic diversification and unstable government. Due to naturalresource abundance in Africa, extractive industries are essential in the domestic economic system,although, the disadvantages based on the resource curse theory, question the support ofcommodity revenues in Africa's development.South America views the issues of extractive industries from a different perspective by analysingthe related developmental approaches namely conventional extractivism, neo-extractivism andpost-extractivism. While South American countries are in different transition phases of extractivism,Africa is dominated solely by conventional extractivism. This results in varying degrees of socialand environmental impacts on the African continent. However, Africa's transition towards neo- orpost-extractivism will limit the problems of the resource curse and offers a more sustainableresource management of the extractive industries.The Environmental Kuznets' Curve (EKC) supports the principle of developed and recentlyindustrialised countries by relying on the economic development, which will reduce environmentaldegradation automatically by achieving a specific turning point. The three phases of EKC can berelated to different stages of economic development, as well as to the three extractivismapproaches. Therefore, transitions from conventional extractivism to neo-extractivism and finally topost-extractivism have to occur to stabilise economic development and reduce environmentaldegradation.Within this process of transition towards more sustainable extractivism approaches, the principle of'Sustainable Structural Transformation (SST) is applicable. SST was described in the UNCTADreport (2012) as a tool to reduce environmental impacts while continuing to provide for the demandof an increasing global population. Neo- and post-extractivism approach supports the concept ofSST, which primarily emphasises more efficient technologies, new economic activities, labourproductivity and regulations. The foundation of SST is based on resource decoupling in order toseparate economic developmental process from natural resource extraction while minimizingenvironmental impacts. For the application of SST and thus for the transition of extractivism,reinvestment is essential to create a diversified economy. While reinvestment can take place invarious forms, the World Bank (2011) identified three types of wealth namely natural, producedand intangible capital contributing to the total wealth of a country. However, developing countriesprioritise natural wealth in comparison to other forms of wealth; therefore, reinvestment has to take place in other types of wealth namely intangible and produced wealth in order to achievesustainable development in Africa.UNCTAD (2012) considers SST as a framework without an attempt of creating a 'one-size-fits-allsolution. This understanding is crucial for the transition from one phase of extractivism to another.Depending on the context of a country, tools have to be adapted to support the needed transition.These existing differences are presented in the case studies of Nigeria and Botswana, which aretwo developing countries in Africa but they present different stages of extractivism and resourcemanagement.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University