9.1 The Approach in the Source Book

The finite character of petroleum and minerals coupled with their extraordinary potential for economic and social development raise in a very sharp way the issue of sustainable development. How does a government meet the challenge of identifying and implementing policies to ensure that the investments lead to positive and sustainable impacts on growth and development? This can be understood simply in terms of ensuring that once a decision has been made on how much of the resource revenues generated and collected will be spent, governments still need to design the right policies to ensure that the revenues are well spent. However, nowadays, there is greater appreciation of how natural resource development can act as a catalyst for economic development so that broad infrastructure and/or poverty reduction policies can be significantly enhanced. Moreover, this catalytic effect can be both long-term and regional in character. For an ambitious government, natural resource development offers opportunities as well as challenges in relation to sustainability. This Chapter of the Source Book seeks to capture this mix.

The Source Book has relied upon the Value Chain method in its presentation and analysis of EI issues. The subject of sustainable development however is one that in some respects is present at all stages in the Value Chain (and this is a fact that the Source Book authors acknowledge). What we are keen to capture with the aid of the Value Chain method is one feature of the development process: the catalytic potential of EI development that follows from the other activities which are examined under the four chevrons (i.e. Chapter 5 to 8)in the Chain. In other words, in Chapter 9 the Source Book takes the narrative potential of the Value Chain to analyze ways that EI activities can be leveraged to generate economic development that may be wider and longer-lasting than the EI activities themselves. This includes beneficial impacts that may be regional in character, not only national.

 

Within This Chapter

Mining Specifics

Oil & Gas Specifics

Africa

Latin America

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