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A country's abundant natural resources may serve as a curse or a blessing, with the outcome often dependent on prevailing governance structures and experience managing these assets. Despite natural resource advantages, many African countries have failed to transform their enormous economic potential and wealth into tangible benefits such as sustainable socio-economic development, human security, or peace. Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa reevaluates the role that foreign state-owned and private-sector actors play in resource-rich states - whether stable, post-conflict, or fragile - in sub-Saharan Africa. Through research and an analysis of in-depth interviews with local stakeholders in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia, Hany Besada explains how foreign state-owned and private sector corporations have contributed to economic growth at both the national and local levels in different resource-rich countries. This book reveals the unique challenges and opportunities created by these investors, demonstrating that adoption policies in business practices and operations have the potential to generate sustainable development and positive economic transformation. Governance, Conflict, and Natural Resources in Africa puts forward a novel framework for understanding the role of private economic actors in extractive industries in Africa and sheds new light on foreign private-sector contributions to capacity building and economic development.

Bringing together some of the world's leading thinkers and policy experts in the area of natural resource governance and management in Africa, this volume addresses the most critical policy issues affecting the continent's ability to manage and govern its precious resources.

Formerly one of Africa's most promising economies, Zimbabwe has begun a process of economic reconstruction after decades of political turmoil and economic mismanagement. The advent of a national unity government in February 2009 launched a new but still tentative era of political stability. The government has a daunting political and economic agenda. Top priorities include restoring the rule of law, demonstrating fiscal responsibility, and putting in place macroeconomic and structural reforms to win the confidence of domestic and international investors. An optimistic time frame for its socio-economic recovery is now estimated to be at least ten years. Zimbabwe: Picking Up the Pieces chronicles the steps that led to the downturn of the Zimbabwean state and economy before assessing what can be done to resuscitate a once-thriving society. Leading experts from and on the region explore the country's options on key governance issues, from strengthening institutions to addressing food security to promoting private sector development to mobilizing donor country assistance. This collection offers a unique glimpse into a fragile state and the severe costs Zimbabweans have and will have to endure if there is to be any hope of recovery.

The scope and nature of humanilarian emergencies generaled by civil conflicts and wars in Africa exceed the continental capacity to adequately and effectively respond to them. With the founding of the African Union and the drafting of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, the basis for collective action against genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, it is a critical time to reflect how best to address issues of regional peace and conflict. New regional conflicts around health, water, land and food security in the world's pooresl and most socially fragmented continent strengthen the need for this volume to assess African regional security arrangements, and provide new policy recommendations. -- back cover.