Conflict over natural resources is likely to pose significant threats to European security, and the European Union therefore needs to elaborate a comprehensive strategy to meet and overcome these threats. This strategy should combine existing instruments and approaches more effectively, while also finding new ways to balance the imperatives of access to natural resources, regulation of markets and conflict prevention, mitigation and resolution. Such an approach requires a better understanding of natural resource-related security and conflict challenges, as well as an analysis of how current policies affect these challenges. The strategy should therefore be based on comprehensive research into the connection between natural resources and conflict financing; the shifting nature of state effectiveness in the context of natural resource agreements; the link between resource conflict and climate change; and the impact of conflict over natural resources on the multipolar global economy.
This paper was presented at an international policy conference ‘Competitiveness and Diversification: Strategic Challenges in a Petroleum-Rich Country’ organised by the Ghana Ministry of Trade and Industry and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation held in Accra on 14-15 March 2011. It argues that resource wealth need not be a curse for Africa and explains how current initiatives can contribute to the transformation of the continent’s resources into economic growth.
This presentation was given by Marie Lintzer during an international policy conference ‘Competitiveness and Diversification: Strategic Challenges in a Petroleum-Rich Country’ organised by the Ghana Ministry of Trade and Industry and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation held in Accra on 14-15 March 2011.
This briefing paper presents updated guidance to private companies on the new US regulation of 'conflict minerals'. The Dodd-Frank Act Section 1502 is game-changing legislation that introduces systems of due diligence that will be driven up the supply chains of tin, tantalum, tungten and gold. It will affect the electronics, automotive, aeronautical, packaging, jewellery and medical industries, and the mining sectors in the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjacent countries. This guidance provides a frank analysis of the likely effects of the legislation and the issues that remain outstanding in its implementation.
In a collaborative effort, Nicholas Garrett, a director of consultancy Resource Consulting Services / associate of the London School of Economics and Political Science and Laura Seay, assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College write on ‘Trade, development and peacebuilding in the African Great Lakes’. For the countries in the African Great Lakes, their economies – and for some their conflicts – are interdependent. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), investing in the creation of an economic and political environment that enables legitimate cross-border mineral trade to flourish could pay dividends, not just for traders, but also for governments and conflict-affected communities, in eastern DRC and throughout the region.
This presentation was given by Harrison Mitchell during a conference organised by the Institute for Environmental Security in Brussels in the context of a discussion about illegality and the limitations to current approaches in dealing with varying forms of illegality in the mineral trade from EDRC.
This report develops a record-keeping system that allows the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt and maintenance, use and disposition of records for four pilot mining companies in Rwanda in the context of the Certified Trading Chains (CTC) Standard Set initiated by the German government to track mineral trading chains. The authors detail the record-keeping systems currently in place among CTC Pilot mining companies to record mineral production and transport; suggest improvements/alternatives to current systems to ensure traceability of the minerals and advice the CTC Pilot companies on how to implement a system of traceability.
This presentation was given by Nicholas Garrett during a conference organised by the Responsible Jewelry Council in London in the context of a discussion of chain of custody approaches in the global gold trading chain. It focuses on the gold trading chain originating from Eastern DRC.
This report assesses efforts within the private and non‐profit sectors to help ensure minerals from Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (EDRC) benefit the population rather than fund armed groups; it furthers the policy debate on how to promote legal mineral trade in EDRC through professionalisation, formalisation and increased transparency. The authors suggest policies aimed to increase the implementability and effectiveness of existing and proposed efforts to better understand the origin of minerals, reduce corruption and increase fiscal benefit to the DRC. By examining the Congolese Government’s and internationally driven approaches to regulating the trade, the authors assess likely outcomes in the challenging implementation environment in EDRC and argue that sustainable implementation requires larger economic and security sector reform efforts and must be compatible with the prevalent political and economic incentive structures of the mineral trade’s stakeholders. Looking to the short and medium term, the authors provide a set of policy proposals to realign these incentive structures to support a more developmentally effective trade that benefits the Congolese people. The report reveals the necessity of leadership from the Congolese Government as well as the need for co‐ordination and consolidation of different conceptual approaches as well as political and financial support from the international community. In particular the authors argue for the implementation of a transparency process at the export stage, where the Congolese Government already taxes a significant proportion of the mineral trade.
This presentation was given by Nicholas Garrett during a seminar in Ispra organised by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. It discusses preliminary findings of an investigation into the trade in minerals in Africa's Great Lakes Region.
This presentation was given by Nicholas Garrett during a conference in Lusaka organised by the Trading for Peace project supported by DFID, COMESA and USAID. It discusses preliminary findings on utilising economic activity in Eastern DRC to support peacebuilding and development.
This report, released by RCS and commissioned by the multi-donor Communities and Small Scale Mining initiative, the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics (LSE), and the Crisis Research Group at Ghent University, challenges recent suggestions that mineral trading in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the main cause of the ongoing conflict. Rather, it argues that the primary reason for insecurity in Eastern DRC is the inability of the Congolese state to control the monopoly of violence and protect its citizens. The widely reported military predation on the minerals trade is another symptom of insecurity and thus intervening in the trade is not enough to solve the crisis.
This report, based on research funded by the UK’s Department for International Development, The London School of Economics and Political Science’s Crisis States Research Centre and the Conflict Research Group at Ghent University, urges policy makers, the private sector and other stakeholders to commit to reforming the existing trade in minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) instead of banning or disrupting it. The report, suggests that military gain from the trade in Eastern DRC’s minerals, which generated at least 4m US$ to the Congolese state in tax revenue in 2008, is not the primary cause of insecurity and violence in North Kivu. Though the report acknowledges deep-seated problems with the trade, it goes further and suggests that, in contrast to current policy approaches, security and trade issues should be addressed separately as trade-based solutions to security issues, such as sanctions, are likely to have little effect on the perpetuation of the conflict.
This presentation was given by Nicholas Garrett and Harrison Mitchell during a conference in Pretoria organised by the Royal Egmont Institute for International Relations. It discusses approaches to the regulation of trade in artisanally mined diamonds in the context of Sierra Leone and DRC.
Nicholas Garrett has written this report commissioned by the multi-donor Communities and Small-scale Mining Secretariat based at the World Bank. The report details the production and trade in cassiterite (tin ore) in conflict torn Eastern Democratic Republic ofthe Congo and their implications for poverty reduction and security in the region. The study finds that armed groups continue to be directly involved in tin mining in North Kivu, but warns that the emphasis on the military dimension of the mining sector diverts attention away from the other underlying opportunities and pathologies in the regional minerals sector, which have to be addressed for buoyant tin prices to help lift the population of North Kivu out of poverty, and for the tin trade to become a driver of peace.Nicholas Garrett wrote this report commissioned by the multi-donor Communities and Small-scale Mining Secretariat based at the World Bank. The report details the production and trade in cassiterite (tin ore) in conflict torn Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and their implications for poverty reduction and security in the region. The study finds that armed groups continue to be directly involved in tin mining in North Kivu, but warns that the emphasis on the military dimension of the mining sector diverts attention away from the other underlying opportunities and pathologies in the regional minerals sector, which have to be addressed for buoyant tin prices to help lift the population of North Kivu out of poverty, and for the tin trade to become a driver of peace.
This in-depth research report identifies new approaches towards the regulation of trading artisanally mined diamonds. The report was commissioned by the UK Department for International Development and was published by the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, Belgium.
This 2007 study includes a preliminary facts-only case study written by Nicholas Garrett for the UK Department for International Development (DFID)'s 'Trading for Peace' research project on the political economy of cassiterite exploitation and trade flows in North Kivu. The study was commissioned by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and published on the DFID website.