Unpacking the Resource Curse and Realism Challenges on Economic Development in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

The third theme of the book seeks to understand the role of mineral resources in the African continent's socio-economic development. The case study of the DRC is used to understand the role played by the state-owned mining company Gecamines to socio-economic conditions of employees and the country's development at large. Resource curse and realism theories are utilised in this case study to unpack the role of mineral resources to Gecamines employees' access to education and healthcare in particular and to the entire country in general. The chapter employed a case study design with a qualitative approach research in its endeavour of exploring Gecamines' socio-economic contribution to its employees. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Gecamines' managers, unskilled mine workers, and the Provincial Department of Mines' officers.

Contribution of Mining Operations Towards Education, Healthcare, Food Security, Housing, Sports, and Recreation in Katanga Province of the DRC

Some resource-rich countries face challenges when it comes to the socio-economic development of its employees and the community at large. This study seeks to examine Gecamines' contribution to the socio-economic conditions of its employees based in the Lubumbashi area and to some extent the province of Katanga under the rubric of resource curse theory. Through this study, lessons can be learnt from the findings on how state-owned mining companies could work on improving their socio-economic contributions in the interest of the employees and the entire population through generated revenues for the state. The study employed a case study design with a qualitative approach research in its endeavour of exploring Gecamines' socio-economic contribution to its employees in the city of Lubumbashi and the development of Katanga Province as a whole. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Gecamines' managers, unskilled mine workers, and the Provincial Department of Mines' officers in the city of Lubumbashi. The key findings from these interactions are that the company's low level of production caused by poor management, political interference, corruption, and poor institutions had negative ramifications on the socio-economic conditions of the workers. A remedy to these challenges lies in strengthening the country's institutions to fight corruption and poor management of parastatals. Autonomy of parastatals from political influence and control is also important to enable the company to play a crucial role in the socio-economic development of employees.

The Asymmetric Impact of Oil Prices on Unemployment in the MENA Region

We examine the effects of oil prices on unemployment rates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) over the period of 1991–2017. Using the panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (panel NARDL) model, the results show that in the long run, positive changes of oil prices exert a positive (increasing) impact on the unemployment rate. However, negative changes in oil prices have a significant decreasing effect on the unemployment rate in the MENA region. We also find that the short run changes in oil prices do not show a significant effect on unemployment rates. Our findings are robust to an alternative measure of oil rents per capita and in line with predictions of the resource curse hypothesis. Countries with higher dependency on natural resource rents experience, on average, a slower long run economic growth rate (and thus higher unemployment rates), compared with countries with lower dependency.