Would Africa be better without its abundant resources? Would the West never have bothered to colonize the continent if there were no abundant resources? Would Africa be forced to invent new technologies with the little it has because the resources are not available? Or would Africa have turned out to be another European continent, invading other people’s land in search of resources just to survive and grow powerful? These are questions that come to mind whenever we think about the situation in Africa. Everybody knows this: Africa is a blessed continent full of abundant natural resources that the world needs. In fact, it seemed that’s the only good thing to talk about in Africa. Yet, the continent with its abundant natural resources is the poorest in the world. This phenomenon has led scholars to decide that Africa is plagued with the resource curse, a term that best describes the gap between the abundant natural resources in Africa and its development. Does this mean these abundant resources should not be viewed as a blessing but a curse?

Now and then we hear that new discoveries of natural resources such as oil or coal have been made in Nigeria, Kenya, or any other African country. If it were to be a Western country where the discovery was made, it would mean more wealth for them but in Africa, it only emphasizes the point that Africa is indeed blessed with resources. The continent possesses resources such as gold, diamonds, oil, natural gas, arable land, and uranium just to name a few. It’s also blessed with an abundance of human population which was why it was colonized by the West in the first place. The Europeans saw the continent as a place where they could get raw materials for their booming industrialized state with ease, hence the colonization. But that is not our focus here today. Our focus is how Africa’s abundant resources have moved from what should be regarded as a blessing to a curse.

The term resource curse was first coined by Prof Richard Auty in 1994 which refers to the inability of nations to use their windfall wealth to improve their population’s lot and bolster their economies. The rich natural resources bring corruption and poverty to a nation, rather than positive economic development, and, counterintuitively, these countries end up with lower growth and development than those without natural resources. Never is this more apparent than in African countries. Take, for instance, Nigeria. Nigeria is touted as the giant of Africa with its large population and according to World Bank data, one of the biggest economies in Africa. The country is the largest producer of oil in Africa which means oil is one, just one, of its abundant resources. It’s the sixth-largest global oil explorer and holds the tenth-largest proven oil reserve in the world, yet it is also one of the poorest nations in the world. The poverty rate is increasing daily, standard of living is low and the country can’t even boast of having adequate basic social infrastructure enough for its growing population.

Burkina Faso is another example. Burkina Faso is currently the fourth largest gold exporter in Africa. The surge in gold production was triggered by the strong growth of the gold price during the 2000s, which resulted in the creation of eight industrial mines between 2007 and 2014. The number of artisanal mines increased from 200 in 2003 to more than 700 in 2014. Despite this, 43 percent of the population was living below the poverty line in 2014. This sad tale of Burkina Faso and Nigeria is what most African countries experience with the exception of a few such as Angola which is doing relatively well.

But then, even though Africa is plagued with the resource curse, research and evidence have shown that so many other countries not in Africa such as Norway, Canada, and the United Kingdom have been able to use their natural resources to achieve positive development for their countries. Interestingly, even countries with little resources have done better than countries in Africa which have abundant resources. Let’s take the UAE for example. Oil and gas are the major natural resources of the United Arab Emirates which cannot be compared to the resources in a small African country like Burkina Faso which has gold, zinc, copper, manganese, phosphate, and limestone in substantial quantities. However, in terms of development, Burkina Faso can not be compared to the UAE.

While Burkina Faso has been described as one of the poorest countries in the world, the UAE is one of the richest countries in the world, always ranking in the top ten richest countries in the world. It has mind-blowing infrastructures, its people are rich and the country is a major regional trading and tourism hub. But the amazing thing is the UAE wasn’t always like this. In fact, it wasn’t even a country. The UAE was just a region filled with several different emirates living and doing their own things and even engaging in fights over land borders. But they were all bound together as a British protectorate known as the Trucial States. It wasn’t until oil was discovered in the 1950s off the coast of Abu Dhabi that things started to change.

The late ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed, was quick to recognize and grab hold of the oil industry’s potential. By the 1960s, the UAE had exported oil for the first time from Abu Dhabi, the country’s capital; this step led to a major transformation of the country’s economy and society. The discovery of oil was particularly helpful in leading to the UAE’s independence from Great Britain in 1971. After the British left, six emirates came together with one more joining later on to form what we now know as the United Arab Emirates. In less than forty years, an entire country was built. The UAE was a rare sight in the Middle East. While neighboring countries were facing difficulties in development and political instability, the UAE was booming. It grew to having the seventh-highest GDP per capita and its wealth has turned it into a major hub of trade, travel, tourism and finance.

So, if the UAE with only oil and gas as its major natural resources has been able to unite and grow to become the richest country in the world, why has an African country such as Burkina Faso with its plenty of natural resources not been able to do the same and even better? If the UAE and other countries that have abundant resources have been able to use the resources to develop their country, that means having abundant resources in Africa is not the problem. It’s not a curse, it’s a blessing. But there seem to be some factors that have made the abundant resources in Africa look like a curse because the gains from it have not been reflected in the people and development of the continent.

From what we have seen, it seems that only the African continent is plagued by the resource curse. The abundant resources in Africa as we know are what attracted the Europeans to divide Africa into colonies and invade them so they could get easy access to raw materials for their industrial needs back at home. It’s still these same resources that made some colonial powers such as France maintain influence in the continent even after the independence of most African countries. It’s why financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF which are controlled by Western powers insist that in exchange for loans and aid, Africa implements capitalist and privatization policies that allow foreign corporations to establish in Africa, giving them easy access to raw materials.

These resources can also be argued to have bred corruption among the African elite who in exchange for power, security, and wealth look the other way when African resources are explored by foreigners. Well, the situation may look hopeless but if these resources are viewed as a curse it won’t change anything because the resources are not going anywhere. They are here to stay. It’s either Africans decide to deal with the issues such as the continuous exploitation of colonial rulers who never left and their multiline national corporations that have left the continent underdeveloped or Africans relax and blame the resources as a problem. It’s up to Africans to solve the African problem. Let Africa say no to Western resource exploitation. No to Foreign corporation’s exploitation of Africa’s resources. No to greedy African leaders. It’s time for Africa to take charge. If the UAE, China, and South Korea can do it, so can any African country.

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