New From CFR: Alexandra Kerr on the Resource Curse

In a guest post on Stewart Patrick’s blog, Alexandra Kerr, program coordinator of CFR’s International Institutions and Global Governance program, discusses the need for transparency in solving the "resource curse," which refers to the theory that natural resource wealth in poor countries can contribute to “conflict, poverty, and social and environmental degradation.” As she describes:

The new legislative moves towards transparency may yield the beginning of a new era in which companies benefiting from natural resources are governed in such a way that endemic resource wealth becomes the blessing to the countries that need it most, rather than a curse. With two-thirds of the world’s poorest people living in resource-rich countries and recent discoveries of oil, gas, and minerals in countries like Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, cementing financial transparency is a fundamental progression to ensure the appropriate development not only of the resources, but of the political economy of those states.

Read her full post here.