‘The absence of regional policies and laws on natural resource governance in the Oil and Gas sector of ECOWAS Member States has limited efforts to ensure proper development and harnessing of the Region’s Oil and Gas resources,’ a 2024 Synthesis Report of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) has said.
Lead Researcher for the Report, Professor Peter Terkaa Akper, while presenting the Report titled, ‘Synthesis Report on West African Regional Laws and Polices on Natural Resources Governance: Lessons and Policy Recommendations for Nigeria and Selected ECOWAS Countries,’ called for adequate resourcing of the ECOWAS Commission.
He quoted the Report as saying: ‘The ECOWAS Commission should be adequately resourced to upscale capacity building programmes in member states for effective implementation of regional policies and laws in the extractive sector.’
According to the Synthesis Report, which was validated by relevant Civil Society Organisations on August 19, 2024, in Abuja, ‘there is increasing demand for Natural Resource Governance (NRG) frameworks in resource-rich countries in the ECOWAS region,’ adding that the ECOWAS Commission should assess extant Regional Instruments and strengthen them to specifically address intersectionality in the extractive sector.
The Report stated: ‘The ECOWAS Commission should regularly monitor and report compliance of Member States with regional instruments and provide support to enable countries comply with the prescriptions of regional instruments.’
While encouraging the Commission to be more proactive in its pursuit of development of the natural resources of the West African sub region, the Report encouraged the ECOWAS Commission to ‘commence the process of assessing the extant regional and national policies of Member States with a view to assisting them to develop their Country Mining Visions to align with the African Mining Vision (AMV).’
It is pertinent to note that the first part of the Research Report which focused on Nigeria was presented and validated on 29th May 2024 after which the scope of the research was enlarged to include 5 other selected ECOWAS Countries namely, Ghana, Mali, Côte D’ Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Gambia.
Consequently, the National Policies and Laws of the selected ECOWAS Countries were also analysed and compared to ECOWAS Regional Instruments to assess their level of compliance and gaps.
While saying that the selected countries (namely Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Côte D’ Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Gambia) have developed policies and enacted laws to regulate the exploitation of their oil and gas resources, it noted that Regional Instruments do not contain specific provisions on intersectionality and are inadequate to address intersectional issues such as child labour, Sexual Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), Discrimination and the plight of Persons with Disability (PWD). According to the Expanded Report, the countries have developed national policies, enacted specific laws and established institutions to address intersectional issues in the extractive sector.
A novel third policy suggestions it made to the ECOWAS Commission toward developing the natural resources of ECOWAS Member States, is: ‘The ECOWAS Commission should commence consultations with Member States to develop a Regional Policy and Legal Framework to regulate the exploitation of the hydrocarbon resources of the region,’ and pointed out that despite the rich endowments of the region, its people suffer from the ‘resource curse’ or ‘paradox of plenty’ as this has not translated in the improvement of the material conditions of the people.
As part of its key findings in the regional context, the Report stated: ‘The ECOWAS region is rich with mineral and oil and gas resources providing a source of revenue and foreign exchange earnings for Member States of ECOWAS.’ It added that there is growing awareness that the natural resource endowments of the region should be sustainably exploited and the proceeds properly managed for the benefit of the people.
The Expanded Research Report revealed that the extractive sector of the selected countries has continued to develop in enclaves with minimal multiplier effect on other sectors of the economy, and noted that the anomaly was limiting the broad based development of natural resources envisioned by the African Mining Vision adopted in 2009.
The Report pointed out that inappropriate NRG Frameworks coupled with weak implementation of extant policies and laws has exacerbated the intersectional issues such as child labour, occupational health and safety, discrimination (against women and PWD), and gender based sexual violence (GBSV) issues bedeviling the extractive sector.
Proffering solution, the Report said: ‘Appropriate NRG frameworks and their effective implementation is required to engender suitable exploitation and management; promote inclusive and broad based development and address the intersectional issues in the extractive sector.’
Making disclosure of findings, the Report said: ‘The extant regional and national frameworks on natural resource governance do not adequately address intersectional issues besetting the Extractive sector thereby constituting a limitation to inclusive and broad based development of the natural resource endowments of the region for the benefit of all segments of the population.’
In clear terms, the Synthesis Report identified ‘weak implementation of natural resource frameworks in the extractive sector’ as a curse that has ‘exacerbated intersectional issues such as child labour, gender discrimination, sexual gender-based violence and the plight of persons living with disabilities with negative consequences on the vulnerable groups and affected populations.’
‘Despite the increasing contribution of natural resources to the GDP, foreign exchange and revenue earnings of ECOWAS Member States, the unfair distribution of mineral wealth and benefits, coupled with endemic corruption have occasioned high incidence of poverty across West Africa.’
‘The ECOWAS region generally reflects the “resource curse” or “paradox of plenty” associated with the extractive sector as it is characterised by poor linkages to other economic sectors and poor management of its revenues which has generally left a high percentage of the population in resource-rich countries in West Africa wallowing in abject poverty.’
‘The growing dissatisfaction with benefit sharing and identified inequalities have heightened agitations for resource control from mineral-bearing States and Mining Host Communities in resource rich countries like Nigeria.’
The Synthesis Report further observed that inappropriate legal and policy frameworks exacerbated by poor implementation have limited inclusivity and access to mineral wealth and participation in the decision-making process regarding the exploitation of mineral resources by all tiers and segments of society.
‘Weak Institutional frameworks have occasioned poor implementation of policies and laws and management of natural resources exacerbating climate change impacts and vulnerabilities in many resource-rich countries, especially in the Sahel,’ and added that institutions established with the mandate to implement policies and laws in the extractive sector have been generally ineffective due to poor capacity and inadequate resources required to effectively and efficiently discharge their mandates.
The Synthesis Report noted that ‘Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) are playing critical roles in the implementation of projects designed to educate and promote awareness, mitigate the impacts of natural resource exploitation on vulnerable groups, advocate for the implementation of policies and laws designed to alleviate the challenges besetting the extractive sector, adding that the intervention of CSOs in the sector can be more impactful with increased capacity building programmes and resourcing from the ECOWAS Commission and other Development Partners as well as collaborative engagements with National Governments in the ECOWAS region.’
In its comparison between ECOWAS Regional Instruments and National Policies and Laws of selected Member States, the Report observed that in the area of Health, Safety & Environment, the policies and laws of the selected countries were generally in compliance with the prescriptions of regional instruments on health, safety and Environment. The Report however said the only difference was that some countries contained more robust provisions than others.
In the aspect of localisation and local content development, the selected countries generally complied with regional instruments on localization and local content development, it said. ‘While some countries accomplished this through policy and law, others only had policies without implementing legislation.’
Discussing the situation of benefit sharing, the Report said the selected countries had policy and legal framework for benefit sharing, but noted that the implementation gap limited the equitable sharing or distribution of mineral wealth across the region, an anomaly that has led to widespread disenchantment and wide inequality gap.
It harped on poor implementation of policies and laws due to weak institutional capacity, and explained that the consequence is that institutions established with the mandate to implement policies and laws in the extractive sector have generally been ineffective due to human capacity and material resource deficiency.
According to the Report, National implementing Ministries, Agencies, and Departments (MDAs) in the selected countries are challenged by poor budgetary provisions, logistic requirements, and requisite training to ensure proper monitoring, investigation and prosecution of offences.
It called for adequate resourcing of Civil Society Organisations, noting that they complement the efforts of government institutions through targeted interventions, noting that adequate resourcing will strengthen their capacity to support government in the pursuit of natural resource governance and realisation of set goals.
