The Resource Curse?
3 videos • 331 views • by UNRISD These are the three presentations given during the UNRISD seminar The Resource Curse? Mineral Rents and the Financing of Social Policy. Geneva, Switzerland, December 2012. Presentations given by Katja Hujo, Research Coordinator, UNRISD, Samuel Asfaha, ITC-ILO and Alfredo Calcagno, Head, Macroeconomic and Development Branch, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD. Natural resource wealth and successful development do not always go hand in hand. Many countries with abundant mineral, land or forest resources are actually low- or lower middle-income countries with high poverty rates, low human development and sluggish growth. Even with booming commodity prices, doubts linger about the potential for mineral-rich countries to achieve more sustainable development outcomes. This phenomenon is often referred to as the paradox of plenty or the resource curse. But why does it appear to be a disadvantage to base an economy on extractive industries or commodity production? History has shown that many of today's developed countries initiated, developed and sustained their economic and social development on just such a basis. Lessons from UNRISD research show that development performance is not simply linked to resource endowment but is the outcome of more complex processes of "employing" resources. Much depends on the conditions in which resources are harnessed and the ways in which they are brought into increasingly globalized markets. What constrains development lies not in what countries have, but rather in what they lack: institutions, financial leverage, human capital, appropriate policies and a favourable global context. For more on the publication discussed in these presentations, see: http://www.unrisd.org/publications/mi... For more information on the research upon which this presentation was based, see http://www.unrisd.org/research/spd/fi... For more information on this event, see: http://www.unrisd.org/event/mineral-r...