Enhancing Extractive Resource Governance in Ghana and Nigeria under Fragmented Policy Landscape and Limited Resource Scenarios: Insight from the Barrow Framework

Abstract

Extractive resources, particularly minerals, soil and timber, have historically supplied the infrastructural, technological, energy and many other goods and services consumers enjoy. However, the global value chains for these high-valued commodities have been criticized as being abusive of economic, sociocultural and environmental rights of resource-rich communities and nations. Paradoxically, it has been found that countries with abundant natural resources such as gold, oil, bauxite, etc. tend to have less economic growth, poor democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources due to poor governance, limited accountability, poor transparency and weak technical capacity (Adams et al., 2018). The questions that development practitioners and scholars often ask has been how Africa's natural resources can be effectively governed to best serve the wellbeing and needs of Africans including staying within ecological limits and improving environmental quality. To this end the concepts of natural resource governance, sustainable mining and ecological governance among others are gaining popularity in discourses within the environment and natural resource space as activists and scholars question the role of extractive resources on human wellbeing and environmental sustainability. Questions such as what should inform mineral resource governance policy to guarantee sustainability?, how can existing policies be improved to facilitate the entrenchment and achievement of intergenerational equity for resource-rich countries?, what variables, themes and concepts should be prioritized or managed to achieve a balance between human wellbeing and environmental sustainability?, what role