‘New’ Approaches to the Governance of Africa’s Natural Resources

Abstract

Extant work on natural resources in Africa has made significant contributions towards our understanding of key challenges and prospects facing the sector, especially with regard to governance-related matters. Discussions on the multifaceted nature of relevant stakeholders in the resource sector have particularly been fruitful in yielding renewed engagement with previously neglected dynamics such as the role of corporate actors and the significance of global standards in the regulation of natural resources on the continent. In this context, the scholarship on natural resource governance in Africa has arguably evolved from a predominant view that held state actors as the primary actors of resource governance to one that acknowledges the powerful role of non-state actors such as multinational corporations and civil society organizations in the governance process. Yet, with a great number of analyses studying the significance of various state and non-state actors’ impacts on African natural resource governance, much remains to be deciphered with regard to the local and global norms and structures through, and within, which these various stakeholders operate. This book is innovative in its approach in that it aims to advance our understanding of such norms and structures, by presenting recent scholarship from various disciplinary perspectives, thus illustrating throughout the chapters an extensive coverage of a different number of natural resource sectors and resource-rich African countries.