CHAPTER 4 Africa’s Natural Resources: The Paradox of Plenty

IntroductionAfrica is blessed with vast Natural resourcesand rich environments (see Chapters 2 and3). It is generously endowed with pro-ductive land and with valuable naturalresources, which include renewableresources (such as water, forestry, andfisheries) and non-renewable resources(minerals, coal, gas, and oil). Naturalresources dominate many nationaleconomies and are central to the livelihoodsof the poor rural majority. These resourcesare the basis of income and subsistence forlarge segments of africa s population andconstitute a principal source of publicrevenue and national the right circumstances, a naturalresource boom can be an important catalystfor growth, development, and the transitionfrom cottage industry to factory , with the right approach naturalresources can be used to make the transfor-mation from a low-value economy that relieson exports of primary commodities to onewith a substantial labor-intensive manu-facturing is commonly agreed that one of theavenues for getting many of the poorestAfrican countries out of the low-income trapis to provide them with a big demand pushthat will generate enough demandcomplementarities to expand the size ofmarkets and recover the fixed costs ofindustrialization.

coast (that is, being a landlocked country or not) affect development parameters? 98 African Development Report 2007 Box 4.1: Cross-Country Evidence of the Natural Resource Curse There are, indeed, resource-rich countries that benefit from their natural wealth, but overall, the economies of many resource-rich countries are in a surprisingly ...

Tags:

  Costa, Africa, Wealth

Information

Related search queries