Extractive Industries: the Management of Resources as a Driver of Sustainable Development

This book is about the challenges and opportunities facing developing countries in using their extractive industries (oil and gas and mining) to achieve inclusive and sustainable development. While resource wealth can yield prosperity, it can also cause acute social inequality, deep poverty, environmental damage, and political instability. There is a new determination to improve the benefits of extractive industries to their host countries, and to strengthen the sector’s governance. The book provides a comprehensive contribution to a debate on what must be done for the extractive industries to deliver development, protect often-fragile environments from damage, enhance the rights of affected communities (and the benefits to them), and support climate change action (as the world transitions away from fossil fuels). New initiatives all recognize that resource wealth can provide a means for poorer nations to decisively break with poverty—by diversifying economies and funding development spending. This book offers ideas and recommendations in the main policy areas as it brings together international experts from many disciplines and organizations. From this collective insight and experience, the book concludes that more attention must be given to the development role of extractive industries, and looks to the future as action on climate change will shape the prospects for the sector.

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