Africa's Natural Resources and Underdevelopment - How Ghana's Petroleum Can Create Sustainable Economic Prosperity

This book explores how African countries can convert their natural resources, particularly oil and gas, into sustainable development assets. Using Ghana, one of the continent's newest oil-producing countries, as a lens, it examines the "resource curse" faced by other producers - such as Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea - and demonstrates how mismanagement in those countries can provide valuable lessons for new oil producers in Africa and elsewhere. Relying on a broad range of fieldwork and policymaking experience, Panford suggests practical measures for resource-rich developing countries to transform natural resources into valuable assets that can help create jobs, boost human resources, and improve living and working conditions in Ghana in particular. He suggests fiscal, legal, and environmental antidotes to resource mismanagement, which he identifies as the major obstacle to socioeconomic development in countries that have historically relied on natural resources.

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

1.Introduction.- 2.The Paradox of Africa's Natural Resource Wealth.- 3.Can Natural Resource-Related Social and Economic Maladies Be Avoided in Africa?.- 4.Ghana's Petroleum: Will the Myth of Ghanaian Exceptionalism in Africa be Sustained or Broken?.- 5.Petroleum Production Challenges in Ghana.- 6.Actual and Potential Conflicts Off- and Onshore in Ghana's Oil-Producing Region.- 7.Policies for High-Value Contributions of Africa's Resources to Sustainable Development.- 8.Summary and Conclusion.

Rezension:

"This is an excellent critical study of contemporary Ghanaian economic history, more specifically, a study of the fraught consequences and prospects of the discovery of crude oil and gas ... ." (Ato Sekyi-Out, MG Modern Ghana, modernghana.com, April, 2018)

"Panford's book is recommended to all readers, including the secondary and tertiary youth. The ease of language without sacrificing technical details and relevant key terms offers much to aid the reader grasp what's going on with Ghana and Africa's bounty of resources: how Ghana's gas, for example, can be used to become a 'socially transformative asset' ... . This book is recommended for adoption in other developing countries as part of anew and progressive education and curriculum ... ." (Anis Haffar, Graphic Online, graphic.com.gh, May, 2017)

"Africa's Natural Resources and Underdevelopment: How Ghana's Petroleum Can Create Sustainable Economic Prosperity Kwamina Panford examines the ways by which Ghana can minim ize the associated negative ramifications of oil and gas extraction. ... an exciting, well written and easy to comprehend book that will be appreciated by policy makers, students and academics." (Austin Dziwornu Ablo, Geography Research Forum, raphael.geography.ad.bgu.ac.il, Vol. 37, 2017)