Responding to the Challenge of Fragility and Security in West Africa

The inability to unlock natural resource
wealth for the benefit of developing countries’ local
populations, a phenomenon popularly known as the ‘resource
curse’ or the ‘paradox of plenty’, has spawned extensive
debate among researchers and policy makers in recent years.
There is now a well-established body of literature exploring
the links between natural resources and conflict, with some
sources estimating that over the past 60 years, 40 percent
of civil wars have been associated with natural resources.
Following this introduction, Section two provides an
overview of interstate tensions in West Africa in order to
improve understanding of the drivers of fragility that
trigger conflict between countries around extractive
industry investment. Here, the discussion is grounded in
examples in which interstate tensions have been apparent,
including the case of the Mano River Union, Cote d’Ivoire,
Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, a region with a history
of conflict, and where the exploitation of commercial
deposits of high-value resources may continue to have a
potentially destabilizing effect. Section three focuses on
the decentralization of natural resource revenues, a process
that proponents believe can help manage grievances and
defuse intrastate tension in areas directly affected by
resource extraction, but one that is also not without
challenges. Drawing upon the case of Ghana’s Mineral
Development Fund, the section explores the potential for
conflict (and conflict triggers) to arise when the
redistribution of extractive industry revenues to
subnational regions takes place. In doing so, it becomes
apparent that the capture and misuse of revenues from the
fund is as much a political issue as it is a policy or
technical one. This sets the stage for section four, which
focuses in greater detail on extractive industry-related
conflict within catchment communities, and how contestation
is most often a result of unequal power relationships.
Section five, the conclusion, summarizes and reflects upon
some of the challenges and struggles over resource
management associated with West Africa’s recent resource
boom, and draws out some of the cross-cutting themes. Here,
suitable entry points for future lines of inquiry and
engagement are identified.