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Blood Diamonds, Blood Phones, and the Devil's Gold: Africa's Resource Curse

Howard Baker Center for Public Policy
Toyota Auditorium
October 1, 2009
5:00p-7:00p

See Also: Conference Poster | Conference Program | Conference Podcast

Many nations in Africa face “the resource curse.” While nonrenewable resources, such as minerals and oil, can generate significant revenues, countries that depend on them often suffer from higher rates of corruption, social unrest, and human rights violations. Reliance on such resources can crowd out investment in manufacturing and agriculture. These economic sectors can distribute jobs and income more widely across society and provide some stability for national economies when commodity prices fluctuate. The resource curse for people of these nations is a staunch and horrid reality—it often means extreme poverty, destruction of the physical environment, exacerbating already present gender inequalities, and multiple human rights violations.

At the conference, a panel of scholars and activists will discuss the various dimensions of the resource curse in such countries as Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. In addition to exploring the inequities these nations face, the speakers will also highlight those actors and groups involved in legislation and advocacy to combat the distributional inequalities and conflicts arising there from.  They will also address how Western patterns of consumption are implicated in these problems.