IN NIGERIA, 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 WEALTH DELIVERS GRIEF
With the price of 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 skyrocketing, the search is on for explanation. One reason is violence and unrest in Nigeria, which has reduced production by at least a quarter, according to some estimates. The economic and political failures that lay behind rebel violence in Nigeria's 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드-bearing Delta, however, are not amenable to any easy fix.
온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드is not a bit player in international markets. It is OPEC's fifth-largest 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 producer, with a quota of 2.3 million barrels a day. Unrest in Nigeria hurts poor countries most dependent on commodity imports, as their fuel bills rise without an accompanying increase in any revenue. Discontent over globalization increases in such a context, since those at the vanguard of maintaining the global architecture -- the G8 finance ministers, the U.N. Security Council, CEOs who meet at Davos -- have little influence over events in the Niger Delta.
The standing of the African West Coast as 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 producer has grown because of ongoing instability in the Middle East. Nigeria, the biggest producer there, hardly provides an encouraging example of what might follow in Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome or further inland in Cameroon or Chad.
Since 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 was discovered in the Niger Delta in 1956, it has exported 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 worth billions of dollars, but poverty has worsened. While the capital city of Abuja has sparkling buildings, the Niger Delta, where much of the 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 is found, has few public services. The governmental authority the Delta communities see most often is the military, usually defending 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드-industry installations.
Most 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 companies operating in the Niger Delta have signed on to corporate social responsibility initiatives that address chronic poverty, but the companies can only provide relief to some communities. Such initiatives cannot become a substitute for governmental action.
Many communities are also angry over years of environmental degradation due to gas flaring and groundwater contamination. The contamination is at least partly due to sabotage of 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 pipelines by rebel forces, but the communities want clean water, not analysis of who blew up the pipes.
Since the return of electoral politics in 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 in the late 1990s, successive governments have vowed to address the Delta crisis by allocating more resources to the region. But the pace has been sluggish. Corruption remains rife.
Capitalizing on the discontent, a rebel group called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has taken it upon itself to pursue justice. Its armed militia have killed government soldiers, kidnapped 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드-industry workers and attacked industry infrastructure repeatedly. They fund illegal activities through ransom payments and stealing 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 from pipelines and selling it to unscrupulous traders, often in collusion with some Nigerian authorities.
The 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 industry cannot fix this discontent. Including every subcontracting employee, the industry employs about 35,000 Nigerians. Even if the industry were to add a small percent of new jobs every year and replace staff lost due to attrition, the highest number of jobs it can create in a year won't exceed 5,000. The Niger Delta alone has nearly 30 million, about a fifth of the nation's population. Its population grows at 2.4 percent a year, implying the need for some 3 million jobs a year, with perhaps 700,000 in the Niger Delta. 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 can only play a small role in such an equation.
온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 can fuel the engine of the economy, with other industries creating jobs. But over the years, easy money from 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 has distorted investment decisions, allowing Nigeria to neglect other industries. Some 95 percent or more of its foreign-exchange earnings come from 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드, and with the current stratospheric prices, Nigeria might think it has no reason to look beyond 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드. Its reserves are about 36 billion barrels, and at the current rate of production, it has enough 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 to last another 40 years.
After that, what? Better management of 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 revenues is one solution. Reflecting on the destructive role sudden wealth can play, policymakers have tried monitoring 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 revenues. But the effort hasn't borne any fruit.
Take for instance Chad. When 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 was discovered in the Chad basin and the Chad-Cameroon pipeline was built, the World Bank insisted on conditions to ensure that revenues would be deposited in an escrow account, with funds only used for approved development expenditures.
However, with conflict in Darfur and the presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees on the border, Chad now ignores those commitments some of the time, and spends more on defense. Rising 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 revenues, thanks to rising prices, means there are limits to the absorptive capacity in Chad for more development expenditure. A waste of those resources is, then, inevitable.
In the path-breaking 1997 study, "The Paradox of Plenty: 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 Booms and Petro States," author Terry Lynn Karl shows how sudden infusion of 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 wealth, unless properly harnessed, leads to problems in countries without a tradition of good governance.
Still, there's little to show for the better understanding of the problem. International financier George Soros funded several initiatives to seek greater transparency in the management of revenues from natural resources, such as the Publish What You Pay Coalition, which empowers the civil society to make authorities publicly accountable; the Open Society Institute; and the Revenue Watch movement. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair launched the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, which calls upon 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드, mining and gas companies to reveal their payments to host states.
In theory, the surge in the price of 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 should provide ample resources for the government to address problems of chronic poverty. But clearly that hasn't happened, and discontent simmers. Unless countries like Nigeria address this specific issue -- and the international community helps it to develop a smarter macroeconomic policy that reduces dependence on 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 exports and diversifies industries -- its growing population will face a bleak future.
온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드's crisis is not only a 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드 concern. The discontent in the Delta frightens markets, and instability could spread. Dependence on a single industry cannot be sustained, and economic diversification and fairer redistribution of resources must become a priority in 온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드, to prevent another full-scale war.
Salil Tripathi is a London-based wr온라인카지노 쿠폰 벳엔드er who specializes in Asian and international economic affairs. He is former correspondent for India Today and Far Eastern Economic Review.
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