Natural resources form a huge part of the wealth of developing countries. However, that is only a potential wealth for the people. There is evidence that countries gaining an important part of their revenues from extractive industries tend to have a lower economic growth and suffer from higher poverty rates, namely in those regions where the mines are located. This phenomenon is known as “resource curse“. There is only a small minority who benefits from the proceeds while the majority suffers from the direct consequences of mining and oil extraction. In general, high military spending and the danger of upcoming conflicts up to civil wars are linked with the “resource curse”.
In the case of Latin America further aspects are corruption, tendencies to authoritative governments, government ineffectiveness and violations of social and human rights.
The mining companies - mainly in the hands of North Americans and Europeans – do not complain about these problems as long as the situation is favorable to them. Quite the contrary, they are even blamed to support the existing political and economic structures in order to maximize their profits.
Mining and other extractive industries cause significant environment problems. Rivers and other fresh water sources are contaminated, biodiversity is reduced, and agricultural land is intoxicated. All this causes health problems among people living in the corresponding regions. There is an especially negative impact on indigenous and rural communities, where in particular women are affected.
Some communities have started protests against extracting companies and demonstrated their opposition against mining or pipeline projects in referendums. However, national authorities do mainly reject or simply ignore those initiatives. This disregards that the right of self-determination is especially given to indigenous people in the Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), signed by Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and other Latin-American countries. But those countries have neither sufficiently integrated its content into national laws nor do they take it as a base for their politics.
The Euro-Latin-American Parliamentary Assembly plenary session in Lima was an excellent moment to discuss this issues.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation Brussels's office has organised a Lunch Debate on “Resource Curse” in May 2008 (INVITACION) and an international forum on 29 April 2008 (INVITACION) in co-operation with APRODEH and Cooper Accion.