Extractive Industries

"A study prepared by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)".

Oil, Gas, and Mining: A Sourcebook for Understanding the Extractive Industries provides developing countries with a technical understanding and practical options around oil, gas, and mining sector development issues. A central premise of the Sourcebook is that good technical knowledge can better inform political, economic, and social choices with respect to sector development and the related risks and opportunities. The guidance provided by the Sourcebook assumes a broad set of overarching principles, all centered on good governance and directed at achieving positive and broadly based sustainable development outcomes. This Sourcebook is rich in presenting options to challenges, on the understanding that contexts and needs vary, and that there is much to be gained from appreciating the lessons learned from a broad set of experiences.

This book uses extractive industry projects in Africa to explore how political authority and the nation-state are reconfigured at the intersection of national political contestations and global, transnational capital. Instead of focusing on technological zones and the new social assemblages at the actual sites of construction or mineral extraction, the authors use extractive industry projects as a topical lens to investigate contemporary processes of state-making at the state–corporation nexus. Throughout the book, the authors seek to understand how public political actors and private actors of liberal capitalism negotiate and redefine notions and practices of sovereignty by setting legal, regulatory and fiscal standards. Rather than looking at resource governance from a normative perspective, the authors look at how these negotiations are shaped by and reshape the self-conception of various national and transnational actors, and how these jointly redefine the role of the state in managing these processes for the ‘greater good’. Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa will be useful for researchers, upper-level students and policy-makers who are interested in new articulations of state-making and politics in Africa.

This book synthesizes findings regarding the political drivers of institutional change in extractive industry governance. It analyses resource governance from the late nineteenth century to the present in Bolivia, Ghana, Peru, and Zambia, focusing on the ways in which resource governance and national political settlements interact.

This book intends to inform the key participants in extractive projects – namely, the communities, the host governments and the investors – about good practice for effective community engagement, based on analysis of international standards and expectations, lessons from selected case-studies and innovations in public participation. The extent of extractive industries varies widely around the Arctic as do governmental and social attitudes towards resource development. Whilst most Arctic communities are united in seeking investment to fund education, healthcare, housing, transport and other essential services, as well as wanting to benefit from improved employment and business opportunities, they have different views as to the role that extractive industries should play in this. Within each community, there are multiple perspectives and the goal of public participation is to draw out these perspectives and seek consensus. Part I of the book analyses the international standards that have emerged in recent years regarding public participation, in particular, in respect of indigenous peoples. Part II presents six case studies that aim to identify both good and bad practices and to reflect upon the distinct conditions, needs, expectations, strategies and results for each community examined. Part III explores the importance of meaningful participation from a corporate perspective and identifies some common themes that require consideration if Arctic voices are to shape extractive industries in Arctic communities. In drawing together international law and standards, case studies and examples of good practice, this anthology is a timely and invaluable resource for academics, legal advisors and those working in resource development and public policy.

This book addresses key challenges and conflicts arising in extractive industries (mining, oil drilling) concerning the human rights of workers, their families, local communities and other stakeholders. Further, it analyses various instruments that have sought to mitigate human rights violations by defining transparency-related obligations and participation rights. These include the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), disclosure requirements, and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). The book critically assesses these instruments, demonstrating that, in some cases, they produce unwanted effects. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of resistance to extractive industry projects as a response to human rights violations, and discusses how transparency, participation and resistance are interconnected.

This volume provides insights into the environmental practices of five industry sectors: materials processing, manufacturing, electric utilities, and pulp and paper. The ecology of industry is presented in terms of systems of production and consumption, taking into account the flows of material, energy, capital, and information. The book examines ways to improve the environmental performance of these industries (and others, such as the service sector) and shows how decisions made by industry managers can leverage systemic environmental improvements elsewhere in the economy.

The extraction of minerals, oil and gas has a long and ambiguous history in development processes – in North America, Europe, Latin America and Australasia. Extraction has yielded wealth, regional identities and in some cases capital for industrialization. In other cases its main heritages have been social conflict, environmental damage and underperforming national economies. As the extractive economy has entered another boom period over the last decade, not least in Latin America, the countries in which this boom is occurring are challenged to interpret this ambiguity. Will the extractive industry yield, for them, economic development, or will its main gifts be ones of conflict, degradation and unequal forms of growth. This book speaks directly to this question and to the different ways in which Latin American countries are responding to the challenge of extractive industry. The contributors are a mixture of geographers, economists, political scientists, development experts and anthropologists, who all draw on sustained field work in the region. By digging deep into both national and local experiences with extractive industry they demonstrate the ways in which it transforms economies, societies, polities and environments. They pay particular attention to the social conflict that extraction consistently produces, and they ask how far this conflict might usher in political and institutional changes that could lead to a more productive relationship between extraction and development. They also ask whether the existence of left-of-centre governments in the region changes the relationships between extractive industry and development. The book makes clear the immense difficulties that countries and regional societies face in harnessing extractive industry for the collective good. For the most part the findings question the wisdom of the development model that many countries in the region have taken up and which emphasises the productive roles of mining and hydrocarbon industries. The book should be of interest to students and researchers of Development Studies, Geography, Politics and Political Economy, as well as Anthropology.