Drilling past the resource curse?
de Osogo Ambani
"The discovery and eventual extraction of natural resources often tests Africa's social and political institutions to the limits, including the levels of subservience to the law, government accountability to the people, and citizen participation in governance. The fact that natural resources in Africa are often discovered in areas with less government penetration or regions that have experienced historical marginalisation such as those inhabited by special groups like indigenous peoples and pastoralists only serves to worsen an already pathetic situation. The problem is often further exacerbated by the unhealthy collaboration between the mostly greedy government officials - expected to facilitate the realisation of the people's well-being - and the profit-motivated multi-national organisations involved in prospecting or mining. In the end, peoples' dignity is undermined, returns on investment are wasted, property rights suffer, and the environment is polluted. At the very core is usually a failed legal and political dispensation that is hostile to the people, the rule of law, good governance and human rights. Agains this backdrop, this book proceeds from four key hypotheses, that: i) all the major governance challenges that usually bedevil the discovery of natural resources in Africa are already operating in Kenya's budding extractives sector; ii) the existence of these problems in spite of a very progressive constitutional and legistlative framework, points to hurdles beyond the law; iii) that is, failure to harness the State for the good of the ordinary person, a culture of impunity, greed, and disregard for the rule of law, iv) which is a dangerous scenario, going by the general African story"--Back cover.
