The resource curse is a disease of economics before it is a disease of institutions

Jul 15, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – Countries rich in natural resources have frequently suffered from poor governance, rent-seeking elites, and weakened public institutions. Yet there is a danger in reducing a complex economic phenomenon into a simple proposition that resource wealth inevitably becomes a curse when politicians become too powerful or when institutions fail to restrain leaders.

The evidence from economic history tells a more complicated story. The Resource Curse does not begin when institutions become weak. It begins when a country fails to build the economic, social, and institutional foundations necessary to transform natural wealth into broad-based human development.

Oil itself is not a curse. Weak economic structures are fundamentally the curse.

Countries do not experience failure because they possess natural resources. They fail because they lack the systems required to convert temporary resource income into permanent productive capacity. The central economic challenge of resource wealth is not simply preventing corruption; it is managing volatility, investing wisely, diversifying production, and ensuring that resource revenues create capabilities that survive after the resources are depleted.

Consider the contrasting experiences of resource-rich nations. Norway discovered enormous petroleum reserves, yet it avoided the classic pitfalls associated with oil wealth. The reason was not merely that Norway had strong institutions before oil. It also had deliberate economic policies: disciplined fiscal management, investment in human capital, technological development, and the creation of a sovereign wealth fund designed to convert finite petroleum wealth into permanent national assets.

By contrast, countries such as Nigeria and Venezuela suffered not simply because politicians became too powerful, but because oil revenues became substitutes for economic transformation. Their economies became overly dependent on petroleum income, while productive sectors weakened, fiscal systems became vulnerable to oil price cycles, and political competition increasingly revolved around controlling access to resource rents.

The lesson is not merely about institutions restraining leaders. It is about whether a state possesses the developmental capacity to use resource wealth intelligently.

The argument that the Resource Curse begins when institutions fail to challenge political power risks confusing symptoms with causes. Weak oversight, lack of transparency, and political patronage are often consequences of deeper economic failures. When a country’s entire economic system revolves around capturing resource rents rather than producing wealth, politics naturally becomes a struggle over control of those rents.

The critical question is therefore: “Can the state use resource revenues to build institutions, industries, infrastructure, and human capabilities that reduce dependence on political control of natural wealth?”

This distinction matters greatly for developing countries. A country emerging from decades of underdevelopment cannot be judged solely by the institutional standards of mature industrial economies. Institutions themselves evolve through economic development. Building effective regulatory agencies, independent oversight bodies, and sophisticated public administration requires resources, expertise, and time.

The experience of successful developing countries demonstrates that resource wealth can be a platform for transformation when governments focus on long-term development. Botswana, for example, used diamond revenues to finance infrastructure, education, and public services, avoiding many of the failures associated with mineral economies. Its success was not because political leaders were powerless; it was because the state developed a coherent strategy for converting mineral wealth into national advancement.

This does not mean accountability is unimportant. Far from it. Transparency and oversight are essential. But accountability must be understood within a broader development framework. A country does not escape the Resource Curse simply because it investigates politicians. Nor does it succumb to the Resource Curse simply because a political leader owns a private farm.

The true test is whether national institutions are capable of ensuring that resource wealth serves national development rather than narrow interests. This requires competent public administration, sound economic planning, investment in education, diversification of the economy, and mechanisms that prevent resource revenues from becoming tools of political patronage.

The greatest danger facing oil-producing countries is economic dependence. When oil becomes the dominant source of national income, every institution becomes vulnerable because the entire society becomes organised around controlling the resource.

Therefore, the answer to the Resource Curse is to strengthen the productive foundations of the economy. The ultimate safeguard against the Resource Curse is not suspicion alone; it is development.

Oil wealth should be viewed not as a temptation to be feared but as a historic opportunity to accelerate economic transformation. The countries that succeed will not be those that avoid politics; no society can. They will be those that use resource revenues to build economies in which prosperity depends not on the possession of oil, but on the knowledge, skills, innovation, and productivity of their people.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper

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• disease of economics, disease of institutions, Peeping Tom, resource curse

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