HOW NATURAL RESOURCES CAN REDUCE POVERTY IN AFRICA Africa has well endowed with natural resources including iron, cobalt, diamonds, gold, oil, uranium, woods, tropical fruits, copper, Tanzaniate. Surprisingly, most of African countries are experiencing poverty. Several arguments may be raised here some believe that the reason for this is poor management of natural resources while others believe in the way natural resources are utilized. Natural resources provide forests which give us timber, wood, fruits, and water bodies provide fish to eat or export and raw materials for a wide range of industries, also provide soil for growing food, and water for drinking, washing and irrigation, besides provide minerals and oil for extraction. In many countries natural landscapes and wildlife reserves are indispensable factors in attracting tourism. Thus it’s explicitly natural resources can lead to economic growth as it touches many sectors of the economy such as mining sector, tourism sector, agriculture sector and directly like to industrial sector through agriculture sector and natural resources that are directly used in industries such as iron ores for manufacturing iron sheet. Therefore proper utilization and management of natural resources is essential for poverty reduction in Africa. But still the question is how is the economic growth that comes as a result of natural resource will reduce poverty in Africa? There are contrasting views on this, For some, what matters is whether the incomes of the poor are rising relative to the incomes of the non-poor and hence inequality is falling whereas others what matters most is the absolute rate at which the incomes of the poor arerising. For example, are they rising fast enough to reduce the number of people living below the international poverty line. Natural resouces in Africa can reduce poverty as mentioned by OECD in 2009 that “To improve the impact of growth on poverty reduction, the flow of output (or income) from the assets of the poor has to increase and the poor have to increase their asset base, or gain from shifting between assets. Growth that is accompanied by degradation or conversion of natural capital on which the poor depend for their livelihoods (for example, the conversion of open access natural forests into privately-held plantations) may even aggravate poverty.” But better management of natural resources alone will not automatically lead to poverty reduction in Africa. What is needed are conducive political, institutional and governance frameworks. Empowerment of the poor, women and marginalised groups is also very essential.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 10:46:15 +0000
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