In contrast to many other parts of the African continent, extractive industries – that is, the mining of metals and precious stones and the production of petroleum and natural gas – have played no major role in the economic history of Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa.

But the picture is changing.

Gold mining in Tanzania has been expanding rapidly over the last few years, making gold the single most important export commodity of the country and Tanzania the third-largest African exporter of gold (behind South Africa and Ghana).

Oil production in Sudan and – on a smaller scale – in Uganda has grown fast over the last decade, and exploration for oil and gas is going on or being prepared in virtually every country of the region.

Beyond these large-scale developments, production of minerals and other extractive resources on a smaller scale is going in many places, largely unnoticed by the wider public. Some of these activities are likely to be very controversial, such as the planned uranium mining in Tanzania.

The expansion of extractive resource exploitation in the region is linked to global economic developments. Rising demand by newly-industrializing countries has created a boom for raw materials after the turn to the new millenium. While the boom has been dented by the global financial crisis and recession erupting in 2008, it is expected to continue and even expand in the years to come.

Developments in the extractive sector in Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa provide exciting economic and developmental opportunities in the region, and are thus encouraged by policy makers. But they also raise serious concerns.

Many countries, especially in Africa, have experienced negative impacts of extractive industries. Mining and oil production frequentlys cause serious environmental damage and often results in prolonged conflict between extracting companies and local communities. Also, on the macro level of economy and socio-political order, fast expansion of the extractive sector has frequently meant economic distortion, a worsening of already poor governance, large-scale corruption and even political upheaval up to the point of violent conflict.

All these phenomena, which result from the combination of weak governance structures and conflict-ridden politics, have been broadly classified under the term "resource curse". In West Africa, Nigeria is a classical case in point, but closer to home, oil production in the Sudan is another example. But even countries that have less internal problems and conflicts may be affected by various dimensions of the resource curse.

Whenever it comes to extractive resources and their exploitation, transparency, fairness and the limitation of environmental damage should be key concerns. A number of global initiatives – for example the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative and the Publish What You Pay campaign – have been started to address some of the problems resulting from resource extraction. On the regional and national level, there is need for greater public awareness and debate. In order to defend the interest of the public and that of less powerful stakeholders, local communities and the general public, first of all, require information about what is going on in the extractive resource sector in the region, and what initiatives are being undertaken to address problems related to it.

On this background, the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s Nairobi office provides this web dossier as a reference source for information around extractive resources and their exploitation in the region. We hope that it will be useful for anybody who is interested in the situation and developments around extractive resources in the region.

The groundwork for this web dossier has been laid through a research undertaken by Stephen Mwakwesi and Philip Otieno in 2009. HBF Nairobi updates the dossier with more recent references to news items and other sources.

Your comments and, possibly, links to relevant new information that should be included are most welcome. Please send feedback by email to nairobi@hbfha.com.

Notes for Use

The dossier contains references to publicly available information on extractive resources and their exploitation in the Eastern Africa / Horn of Africa region.

The dossier is organised geographically by countries, supplemented by a section on issues of regional and global relevance. Within the respective country sections, further thematic sub-headings with extra pages may come up.

When looking for more specific information across regions, you may use the search facility provided by this website.