$1 trillion in unmined mineral deposits means …
In Afghanistan, a Threat of Plunder
| This Oxford economics professor does not even make a case for sharing Earth’s worth, just assumes it as a basic right -- which geoists know it is. His 2010 op-ed is from the New York Times, July 19 (via reader Heather Remoff). He is author of The Plundered Planet: Why We Must -- and How We Can -- Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. |
by Paul Collier
Afghanistan’s $1 trillion in unmined mineral deposits -- huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, lithium, and other metals -- could end up financing more tribal and ideological warfare. Elsewhere mineral wealth has brought mainly corruption and violence: in Nigeria (oil) and Congo (gold, copper, and other minerals). In Sierra Leone, diamonds enabled the Revolutionary United Front to evolve from a protest movement into a lethal diamonds racket.In eastern Congo, $1 billion in gold is being extracted and exported annually, yet because the government lacks control over the territory the revenues for the national Treasury last year were a mere $37,000. If the Afghan government ends up with the same proportion, that treasure of natural resources would finance only a handful of helicopters.
How can Afghanistan ensure that its people benefit from its mineral wealth, and avoid resource-induced violence? There is a chain of decisions to get right, from managing the prospecting to investing the revenues. Most important, Afghanistan must see that its citizens who live near the mineral deposits benefit -- with jobs and spending on public works.
Nigeria is a prime example of what happens when the local population pays the price for extraction without reaping the rewards. Oil drilling in the Niger Delta has created few jobs for local people but caused hundreds of spills, ruining their ability to make their traditional living from fishing or agriculture. Politicians have pocketed most of the oil revenues. As the residents of the delta realized that outsiders were profiting from the destruction of their land, gangs formed to kidnap oil workers and sabotage pipelines.
To avoid such fallout, Afghanistan should follow the example of Botswana, which has used diamond revenues to build roads, power lines, and schools, raising the economic standard of the country from very poor to upper-middle income. Malaysia, likewise, has used revenues from tin and oil to diversify its economy and create jobs -- building, for example, a manufactured exports zone in the impoverished region of Penang.
Such government largess will be impossible, of course, if Afghanistan fails to reap its fair share of the profits from mineral extraction. A cautionary example is Zambia, where a copper boom has been a bonanza for Chinese companies, but copper exports of around $3 billion a year generate a mere $100 million in tax revenue for Zambians. This is largely because the Chinese work out their extraction deals directly with the Zambian president, and the public never learns the details. Even the country’s Finance Ministry is kept in the dark.
To build trust, the Afghan government must be open about any deals it makes with foreign companies. It has already shown it has room for improvement in this regard: the country’s first extraction deal, for copper, was won by the Chinese in murky circumstances -- the minister of mines was accused of taking a $30 million bribe. But now Kabul has signed on to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a set of disclosure standards created seven years ago by an international organization of governments, civil society, and business.
Afghanistan should hold monitored auctions for extraction contracts and perhaps write some of them as Iraq has written its oil contracts: the government retains ownership and pays only a service fee for extraction.
If it can manage to reap all the potential revenues from mineral extraction, Afghanistan will need to spend the money in ways that genuinely benefit ordinary Afghans. Rather than funnel it all through the ministries -- which have shown themselves to be corrupt and inefficient -- some of the money should be sent directly to village councils. Afghanistan has already tried this approach with the National Solidarity Program, an effort to encourage local development that started in 2003; villages have spent the money on schools, health care, or whatever they have considered most needed.
Afghanistan is part of the last frontier for resource discovery -- one of the 60 most impoverished countries, which account for around a quarter of the earth’s land but which have barely been prospected. Over the next decade, given high world commodity prices, the last frontier will be explored, creating more opportunities like that in Afghanistan. All these countries will need to resist the kind of plunder that has characterized resource-rich countries with weak governance.
JJS: What can you do? You can extol the virtue of sharing Earth’s worth. Help make it a right as clear, understandable, and accepted as any other right, like the right to vote, marry, or work without being a slave. Make geonomics as familiar as aspirin -- and economic headaches will go away.
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Editor Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Another Oppressed Nation, Another Coup
Malawi villagers move for new school, gift from pop star
The Resource Curse has been Broken by some |
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