Natural resources are not just economic resources, they are also political resources. At local, national and international level, actors compete to control access to, and benefits from, natural resources. How these competitions are resolved, and who benefits from them, lie at the heart of natural resource governance.  

In situations where there is weak governance, poor people have few incentives to manage their resources for the long term and face significant barriers to building a sustainable livelihood for themselves. Insecure and biased property rights regimes can foster social and economic exclusion and generate conflict. A lack of effective management of common property resources can lead to over-exploitation, unregulated competition and resource degradation. Elite capture of resource revenues can prevent the benefits generated by natural resource wealth from reaching poor people. All of these processes undermine poor people’s livelihoods and increase their poverty and marginality.  The livelihoods of poor people are likely to be enhanced in circumstances of ‘good’ governance—where property rights regimes are predictable, secure and fair; effective institutions govern common pool resources; and the benefits of resource rents flow to the bulk of the population and not just to elites. In these circumstances, it is more likely that poor people are able to invest in the sustainable use of their resource base and use these natural assets as a foundation on which they can build a sustainable livelihood.

theIDLgroup believes that effective and equitable governance of natural resources is essential in helping to lift poor people out of poverty and to the integrity and survival of the resource base.

Selected Experience:

• Development of learning resources on NR Governance for DFID Livelihood Advisers;
• DFID Options Paper on the role of Natural Resource in generating and  sustaining conflict;
• Design of Zambia’s programme to improve the enabling environment of agriculture;
• Advising the government of Ghana on its preparatory process for FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) negotiations with the EC.