Paul Collier talk

Paul Collier is probably the best known development economist with a specialization on Africa. He has written a particularly famous book 'The Bottom Billion' and just released two more. I have been wanting to meet him for the past couple of years, given my interest in economic development, always knowing that he was just round the corner from me, at the University of Oxford, and finally got a chance yesterday when he spoke at the Oxford Union.

He mainly focused on Africa and resources and said interesting things like how the tax systems in Africa are totally wrong and therefore they get a minute amount of 'rent' from extracted resources. For example, Zambia received very little in tax revenues from copper exports, during the recent boom. When they tried to rectify the problem, the multi-nationals said the taxes were too high, so after some negotiation, they reduced them again. Alas, during the next boom, again, they recieved very little in the way of rents.



He also spoke about his initiative for a natural resource charter (http://www.naturalresourcecharter.org/). An excerpt from the website is shown below:

The Natural Resource Charter is a set of principles for governments and societies on how to use the opportunities created by natural resources effectively. Some of the poorest countries in the world have large amounts of natural resources and these can provide a pathway out of poverty. Yet in the past, these opportunities have often been missed, and resource abundant countries have consequently remained poor.
Natural resources have the potential to be transformative if they are properly harnessed for development. However, the value chain from the discovery of natural assets through to their conversion into a productive economy is long and complex. This is why the process has so often been unsuccessful.

The Natural Resource Charter seeks to provide guidelines and standards to inform and improve natural resource management. It aims to ensure that the opportunities provided by new discoveries and commodity booms will never again be missed.