Political Commitment to resource management, the African case

Natural resources' importance in economic and social development has been a recurring theme in development and policy debate. While existing research on the 'resource curse' is inconclusive, many studies show that resource-rich countries have poor economic growth and development outcomes. Many of these studies, however, treat development outcomes as a byproduct of good resource governance, rather than investigating the relationship between resource governance and social impact or development outcomes. The primary goal of this research is to look into the relationship between political commitment and a variety of dimensions, including economic diversification, resource governance, fiscal sustainability, and social impact in resource-rich countries, with a focus on Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. The study aims to address the lack of research and policy attention paid to the role of political commitment in mitigating the resource curse with a data span from 1980–2018. The study is motivated by the little research and policy attention to the role of political commitment in addressing the 'resource curse'.The findings show that the majority of Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries in the study have low or very low levels of government commitment, as measured by the Natural Resource Political Commitment Index (NRPCI). Furthermore, the findings indicate that natural resource governance is complex; for example, Botswana has a high NRPCI score but a low social impact score, indicating that the benefits of the natural resource have not been felt in the lives of their citizens. This finding is still relevant in terms of policy implications. The index could be a useful tool in policymakers' hands as they attempt to address the multifaceted challenges that natural resource abundance developing and emerging countries face, as well as bring new perspectives to the natural resource curse research agenda.