Africa has significant natural resource wealth. The continent houses more than half of the world's rare minerals and is rich in both renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
According to African Development Bank (2015), about 30% of all global mineral reserves are found in Africa. The continent's proven oil reserves constitute 8% of the world's stock, while those of natural gas amount to 7%. Minerals account for an average of 70% of total African exports and about 28% of the gross domestic product earning from recent oil, gas and mineral discoveries could lead to an increase in government revenues of between 9% and 31% in the first 10 years of production in countries like Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.
According to International Union on Conservation of Nature; the crux of natural resource governance revolves around the rules, structures and procedures put in place to determine how power and responsibilities over natural resources are exercised, how decisions are reached and how the citizens- women, men, indigenous peoples and local communities, participate in and enjoy benefits from the management of natural resources. The essence of having structures in place for the governance of natural resources transcends the equitable distribution and mutual enjoyment of the benefits accruing from such natural resources which determines the extent to which ecosystems contribute to human well being and the long-term prospects for successful conservation of nature.
Although natural resources wield the power to bring wealth and stability to resource rich developing countries but the mismanagement of these resources which often come to bear has led to environmental degradation, poverty, human rights abuse and conflict
Furthermore, Africa's natural resources provide a unique opportunity to advance/strengthen human and economic development. It must however be established that abundance of natural resources will not necessarily give rise to proportionate levels of prosperity, broad-based development and resource-based industrialization without the structure- i.e. governance
However, with all the resources Africa is blessed with, one of the major stumbling blocks are lack of strong institutions and weak policies, aimed at short-term gains rather than at long-term development objectives. Many African governments have become awakened to the need for good governance over their natural resources and have emerged from the murky waters of corruption, rising into a new era of transparency and accountability.
This research will look at new commitments been expressed at community participation and investing revenues from natural resources in order to enhance development outcomes, including better health, better education and access to quality social services through the lens of Sustainable Developments Goals 11, 16 and 17 vis a vis John Ruggie Guideline on Business and Human Rights.
For instance, at the continental level, we have a new African normative framework on natural resource governance- The Africa Mining Vision adopted by heads of state in 2009. Which provides a compelling thrust towards "transparent, equitable and optimal exploration of mineral resources and underpin broad-based sustainable growth and socio-economic development". It further calls for greater value addition of African mineral resources through the African Mineral Governance Framework
This study further enunciates that the exploration and use of natural resources drives a wedge into the environment and leaves a void which little or no attention is often paid to filling. As a result of this, the void keeps getting bigger and overtime it creates a large vacuum in the environment, a vacuum which subsequently takes a toll on the environment, the natural resources and consequently jeopardizes the opportunities of not just the present but also the future generations to equally enjoy the benefits of these resources. While it is commendable that Africa has developed a common position on the Post- 2015 Agenda which includes a point on improving natural resource and bio-diversity management, governance and sustainability is nevertheless sacrosanct. It is advocated that opportunities for effective decoupling offer not only the lifelines for the survival of human civilization but also serve as preconditions for reducing poverty and social inequalities.
The thrust of this paper is Sustainable Development cum ‘decoupling’ growth from the use of resources been envisaged by the Post- 2015 SDG Agenda which is an attempt to reconcile the developmental patterns with the pursuit of sustainability at a global scale so as to halt and if possible inverse the negative trends observed in the evolution of our planet extending from depletion of scarce resources, the pollution of the environment and the climate change caused by human activity.
Keywords: Natural resources, Governance, Sustainable Development Goals, Africa