ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 focuses on how the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) will affect how urgently negative environmental impacts in the field of natural resources will need to be addressed. It does this by looking at how natural resources have contributed to Africa's wealth creation, the potential effects of the AfCFTA and the prospects for intra-African market growth. Beginning with a discussion of the current controversy about the validity and attributes of the “resource curse,” the chapter then presents some recent data on the sustainability of Africa's resource management based on wealth creation and adjusted net savings. It then evaluates the body of research on the AfCFTA's effects on the sectors that deal with natural resources and offers findings about the dynamics of African exporters by probing the opportunities for market expansion and assisting regional value chains. Finally, it analyzes some policy observations and frames the problem in the context of the ongoing recovery effort from the so-called “polycrisis.”
