ABSTRACT
Despite millennia of metallurgy and decades of industrial mining and oil production, most sub-Saharan African (SSA) jurisdictions are still emerging players within globalized extractive industry (EI) markets and value chains. 1 Over the last twenty years, myriad regulatory and fiscal changes have characterized liberalized EI governance. Strong and sustained economic growth rates across many African economies over the last decade and into the foreseeable future have been driven in large part by (mostly foreign) investments in and exports of extractives (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and African Union (AU) 2012, 2013; United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) 2013, 2014). Despite these advances, Africa’s geological affluence is still vastly underexplored and under-exploited: African mineral production is roughly 10 percent of world output and accounts for 15 percent of total investment. 2 Oil and gas output is set to grow rapidly as Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and others ramp up production, but overall levels of exploration are still comparatively limited and have slowed recently. Over the last decade, new international players, particularly from China and India, but also elsewhere, including African firms, have challenged traditional Western dominance in extractive sectors. Additionally, pre-colonial and colonial “enclave” inheritances, new prospects and projects, and global competition are shaping what has become a new era of EI growth across most African jurisdictions.
