Oil extraction in Africa has escalated by 36% in the past decade - a boom which will continue to intensify during the coming years. This development is fuelled partly by the new “global players” such as China and India surging onto the African energy resource market, but also by increased exports to the USA, which currently draws about 17% of its oil from Africa. In the next ten years this figure is expected to rise to 25%. The European nations also plan to boost their oil imports from the region in future.

The oil deposits in the Gulf of Guinea, a region which extends from West Africa to Central Africa and includes the countries from Côte d’Ivoire to Angola, are increasingly in demand. The region has tremendous potential in terms of vast untapped oil reserves. According to estimates, offshore oil reserves amount to about 15 billion barrels (a barrel contains approximately 157 litres). The Gulf of Guinea therefore has the largest deep-sea oil reserves in the world, along with sizeable reserves of natural gas. But onshore, too, West Africa is rich in oil and natural gas. Moreover the region is blessed with other large mineral deposits such as gold, diamonds, manganese, iron ore, copper, tin, coltan, etc.

More and more multinationals are now attracted to the region. Due to the steadily climbing oil price and anticipated foreign direct investment, the oil producing countries can expect substantial revenues in the future. As the economic importance of the Gulf of Guinea grows, so too does the region’s geopolitical importance.

For the states of West Africa, the wealth of energy resources and other mineral deposits could provide the impetus needed to stimulate (economic) development in the region and make a decisive contribution to poverty reduction. Currently, however, these countries are still some of the poorest in the world, and poverty levels have actually increased over recent years. At present the area is single-mindedly focused on the oil sector, and extreme levels of bribery and corruption, mismanagement and a lack of transparency prevail, as a result of which the oil revenues benefit only a minority of the population. Time and time again oil extraction has been linked to environmental disasters, violent conflicts with immense destabilising potential, as well as severe human rights abuses. Oil extraction has not stimulated any perceptible impetus to development. On the contrary, in many countries the socio-economic position of the majority of the population has been steadily deteriorating for years.

The question is whether the natural resource wealth of the Gulf of Guinea countries will continue to be a “curse”. Will the socio-economic situation continue to worsen and poverty levels continue to rise? Or will the revenues from natural resources offer these countries an opportunity to invest in development?

Africa's Natural Resources: Potential for Conflict and Development

This was the title of a symposium organised by the “Development Works - Together for People in Need” alliance in Bonn in November 2006. Representatives of the alliance and its partner organisations from Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Chad held discussions with interested guests from the field of politics, professionals and the media.