Why do some countries stay poor despite having abundant natural resources?

[ZAINmalik75]

WHAT THINGS ARE NEEDED TO TURN NATURAL RESOURCES INTO PROSPERITY IN YOUR POINT OF VIEW ?

I think there are two things that primarily cause this problem, where a country might have an abundance of natural resources of still have a poor economy and a suffering population. The first one is obviously corruption in the government because when those in control are corrupt to the core, no matter how much resources are discovered, they are never going to use the money they made from selling those resources to do something for the country, but they will take all the money for themselves and keep the country and the economy miserable so that the common people suffer because they don't care about them at all.

The second thing that can cause problems is sanctions from international bodies such as the UN, because if there are sanctions imposed on a country, no matter how many natural resources they have, they won't be able to make much out of it since they won't be able to trade the resources with other countries and hence have no benefits for having those resources, because a country can only become rich and have a great economy if they have natural resources and are also allowed to have international trades with other major countries.

[Cookdata]

Corruption and poor economic management of natural and human resources are the three major reasons why well endowed countries with natural resources still remain poor. This situation is common in the Africa and Asia continents where political leadership is bereft of ideas. Nothing else explains it better. My country is an example of this. With her numerous natural resources in crude oil, bitumen, coal, gas, limestone, lead and zinc, just to mention a few, Nigeria is still categorized as a poor country. In the actual sense, the country isn't poor; it's just that it's poorly managed by her political leadership. So, it's with many other countries.

You forgot to include nepotism where one family controls one government institution. There are some government institutions that you will never here about job recruitment, they are always hidden and share among themselves when there is new applications and it will never go to outsider, it's always between the families and friends. For years now, I have never seen a single person that applied for NNPC job application openly and got the slot, always hard.

To here this becomes normal, huge numbers of people are been sideline, this is why poverty is on the increase and corruption is on the high as well. The bad impact about this is that people see it as normal, people have emulate corruption as norm in the society that it's difficult to eradicate, because tell me why should I want to stop corruption when the rest are doing it? You may even be evicted from trying to make the place better.

[bhadz]

I will take my country as an example. There is no doubt that we're so rich in natural resources and very abundant and yet, why we're importing rice when we've got vast lands in our nation that's being worked upon by the farmers? Corruption. And the same goes with the mining companies who are destroying the mountains and they just leave it astray after digging it. Corruption still. We're actually rich into those matters and yet, utilizing it by the hands of the corrupt politicians makes us poor and they're only focusing on their pockets to be filled than for the people to take the perks of having it.

[Pandorak]

The key is integrity.

If the government fulfills its duties without expecting any reward or benefit beyond the salary it receives, then i am absolutely certain that all the resources generated will surely lead to the people’s prosperity more quickly. But the reality is that it’s hard for us to find officials who truly care, most are only thinking of themselves and their own groups. Even if there are officials who do care, they’re often brought down quickly, perhaps by being set up or falsely accused of various things that force them to lose their positions or even end up in prison.

[Mpamaegbu]

For years now, I have never seen a single person that applied for NNPC job application openly and got the slot, always hard.

Just bear it in mind that once job adverts from big companies and multinationals like that hit national newspapers that those jobs are already filled. These companies only put out such notifications for formality sake. Vacancies are often advertised within such companies in hushed tones. I know of someone close to me at the time who left his banking job for NNPC almost two decades ago. When he broke the news to me and I asked him when it was advertised, dude just smiled and said, "forget it". Jobs that are usually thrown to the public are low paying jobs. Nepotism and favouritism have really eaten deep into the fabrics of our society.

You may even be evicted from trying to make the place better.

Exactly! One can even be stigmatized for attempting to do the right thing.

[Nanga Parbat]

I tend to agree with you. People are not wrong to say that corruption and poor governance are the reason why a country remain poor despite possessing abundant mineral resources. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg, and the deeper reason behind it is that colonialism or imperialism has not disappeared at all. They are still quietly operating under new names, dressed up as development cooperation, foreign investment or technical assistance.

Instead of using the army, warships, and bombs to invade and plunder. Now, they set up puppet governments, manipulate politics, create financial trap, and quietly pull the strings from behind the scenes.

Every one has discussed the corruption or poor government and weak management of developing countries. Yes all these are the prior reason of this but I think lack of advanced technology or skilled workers are also a big reason of poverty. Usually a country who is rich in resources they sell these to other countries at low prices. Because it's is in raw form so they prefer to export it because they have no technology to process it.  So developed countries received these resources at low prices and process it and shaped it into different goods . Then under developed countries buy these products at higher prices. These prices difference create inflation or burden on the economy. Selling at low but buying at high means get lower income while they have to pay more reserves this create inflation or put high payments burden on the economy.

[Berry2d]

The key is integrity.

If the government fulfills its duties without expecting any reward or benefit beyond the salary it receives, then i am absolutely certain that all the resources generated will surely lead to the people’s prosperity more quickly. But the reality is that it’s hard for us to find officials who truly care, most are only thinking of themselves and their own groups. Even if there are officials who do care, they’re often brought down quickly, perhaps by being set up or falsely accused of various things that force them to lose their positions or even end up in prison.

Lack of Integrity is a common disease found among or in the lifes of our leaders now which is the main reasons poverty still keeps spreading despite the existence of abundant resources in most countries especially in African countries.   I know many will be wondering why I mentioned Africa specifically when they are not the only continent with high level of poverty.
In the world now, Africa is the continent with the highest mineral resources but they remain the poorest continent just because of leaders that lacks integrity and are controlled by greedy and selfish mindset which I know until that mentality changes they will remain poor.

[retreat]

The key is integrity.

If the government fulfills its duties without expecting any reward or benefit beyond the salary it receives, then i am absolutely certain that all the resources generated will surely lead to the people’s prosperity more quickly. But the reality is that it’s hard for us to find officials who truly care, most are only thinking of themselves and their own groups. Even if there are officials who do care, they’re often brought down quickly, perhaps by being set up or falsely accused of various things that force them to lose their positions or even end up in prison.

Integrity is something we very rarely see in our public officials these days. I remember there is one officials who used to be a governor, he did his job very well and had high integrity, but because of one slip of the tongue regarding religion, he became the target of a group of people and had to serve time in prison. Since then, we've rarely seen officials with integrity like his. If only we had more officials with this kind of integrity, our country would be in a much stronger position today. But what we see now are officials who have no shame in being involved in corruption and who don't care about the lives of the people.

[DrBeer]

WHAT THINGS ARE NEEDED TO TURN NATURAL RESOURCES INTO PROSPERITY IN YOUR POINT OF VIEW ?

I think there are two things that primarily cause this problem, where a country might have an abundance of natural resources of still have a poor economy and a suffering population. The first one is obviously corruption in the government because when those in control are corrupt to the core, no matter how much resources are discovered, they are never going to use the money they made from selling those resources to do something for the country, but they will take all the money for themselves and keep the country and the economy miserable so that the common people suffer because they don't care about them at all.

The second thing that can cause problems is sanctions from international bodies such as the UN, because if there are sanctions imposed on a country, no matter how many natural resources they have, they won't be able to make much out of it since they won't be able to trade the resources with other countries and hence have no benefits for having those resources, because a country can only become rich and have a great economy if they have natural resources and are also allowed to have international trades with other major countries.

Most of the world’s resource-rich countries attract investment or grant market access to companies from other countries, particularly developed Western nations. This makes it possible to get the process of mineral extraction and profit generation off the ground. What happens next depends on how uncorrupt the government is and whether the investors made the right choice.

[Zanab247]

Corruption is the main reason why a lot of countries are poor despite having a lot of natural resources and I'm going to use Nigeria as an example, this country is blessed with a lot of natural resources and it supposed to be the richest country in Africa but due to poor leadership and all the country and it's citizens stay poor.

Corruption is everywhere in the world but they are higher than each other. If it come to rating of corruption I guess there are corruption, because there is no country in the world that is not experiencing hardship in their land which is the effect of corruption. The challenge most countries in the world are experiencing is the bad leaders that are not ready to eliminate the spirit of stealing government resources, because if government can change from that habit of stealing from government, I guess poverty will be a thing of the past.

You think Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world? no Nigeria is not the most corrupt country and I will not mention the most corrupt country in the world, because I don't know how their citizens will feel if they are in this forum to read my comment.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Corruption:
Resource money goes to politicians and elites, not to schools, hospitals, or roads. Secret deals with contractors are common.

One-resource risk:
If the economy depends on just one resource, it crashes when prices fall.

No investment:
Investors avoid the country due to weak laws and no property rights, so no new factories are built.

The solution:
A stable government and low corruption are needed to turn resources into prosperity.

WHAT THINGS ARE NEEDED TO TURN NATURAL RESOURCES INTO PROSPERITY IN YOUR POINT OF VIEW ?

Well, I think you've already said it all, I don't what exactly could be the reason for other countries being poor even when they have a good abundance of natural resources, but for my country, the root cause has been no other but corruption.

The government of my country is very corrupt, and this is the area I think we the citizens of the country have failed, because over and over, we keep allowing corrupt politicians to rig and win the elections, and this is due to lack of love and corporation between the three ethnic groups we have in the country, each of this ethnic group is always fighting for their own to rule not minding whether the person is corrupt or not, this is one of the major reason why Nigeria as remained poor even with all the natural resources the country is blessed with.
Minus our corrupt leaders, I think my country will be one of the richest in not just Africa but the whole world, we once were actually..

[LGD2Business]

Corruption is everywhere in the world but they are higher than each other. If it come to rating of corruption I guess there are corruption, because there is no country in the world that is not experiencing hardship in their land which is the effect of corruption. The challenge most countries in the world are experiencing is the bad leaders that are not ready to eliminate the spirit of stealing government resources, because if government can change from that habit of stealing from government, I guess poverty will be a thing of the past.

You think Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world? no Nigeria is not the most corrupt country and I will not mention the most corrupt country in the world, because I don't know how their citizens will feel if they are in this forum to read my comment.

Corruption exists everywhere, just at different levels. Does Nigeria have a corrupt government? I can name at least 20 countries that are even more corrupt than Nigeria. This is a global problem. The country's resources, which should belong to the people, are concentrated in the hands of only a select few. That's why while the people struggle with poverty and destitution, the ruling class and a small elite circle continue to live lives of luxury.
The way to break this cycle is through education, but the people's awakening is being prevented through deliberate, poor-quality education.

[Russlenat]

Having abundant natural resources does not mean the country is indeed rich, its still up to the head of the country how he will make use or promote those natural resources to create a passive income or active income especially to the locals who are only relying on the natural resources for survival.

My country has also its own rich natural resources, yet my country remains poor, in fact one of the poorest countries because of corruption made by the highly elected officials of the country.

[Pi-network314159]

The reason many countries stay poor despite having abundance resources is basically because of bad leadership and  poor management of natural resources. Some countries have natural resources but due to this leaders it has made the country look backword. This is the reason why my country Nigeria is staying poor despit the numerous resources we have. It is common in African countries. Though I am not saying that there are no bad leadership in other parts of the contenent like Europe and Asia and the rest, but I see that African's are the most affected people.

[Emitdama]

Corruption:
Resource money goes to politicians and elites, not to schools, hospitals, or roads. Secret deals with contractors are common.

One-resource risk:
If the economy depends on just one resource, it crashes when prices fall.

No investment:
Investors avoid the country due to weak laws and no property rights, so no new factories are built.

The solution:
A stable government and low corruption are needed to turn resources into prosperity.

WHAT THINGS ARE NEEDED TO TURN NATURAL RESOURCES INTO PROSPERITY IN YOUR POINT OF VIEW ?

Well, I think you've already said it all, I don't what exactly could be the reason for other countries being poor even when they have a good abundance of natural resources, but for my country, the root cause has been no other but corruption.

The government of my country is very corrupt, and this is the area I think we the citizens of the country have failed, because over and over, we keep allowing corrupt politicians to rig and win the elections, and this is due to lack of love and corporation between the three ethnic groups we have in the country, each of this ethnic group is always fighting for their own to rule not minding whether the person is corrupt or not, this is one of the major reason why Nigeria as remained poor even with all the natural resources the country is blessed with.
Minus our corrupt leaders, I think my country will be one of the richest in not just Africa but the whole world, we once were actually..

There were rich people in Africa back in the day as well, Mansa Musa literally destroyed the economy of the places he passed, because he would literally crash the value of gold by giving out so much of it. This is a story that is of course not the important relevance today, but that is very key to realize, Africa would have bene fine without the corrupt leaders. No water? Easy, you do plantations, and water it yourself, it is not really that hard.

You can turn the hot scorching Africa, into amazons if you wanted to, not impossible, it's a whole ass continent, surrounded by water, you start from outward, and make it green, and get some rain, and you work towards the inside and make it work one way or another. That's just one thing, and after trillions of dollars of help, all going to corrupt leaders pockets and their palaces instead of people in need, you know why things are not good in almost every nation, not just in Africa.

[Unknown Op]

The reason many countries stay poor despite having abundance resources is basically because of bad leadership and  poor management of natural resources. Some countries have natural resources but due to this leaders it has made the country look backword. This is the reason why my country Nigeria is staying poor despit the numerous resources we have. It is common in African countries. Though I am not saying that there are no bad leadership in other parts of the contenent like Europe and Asia and the rest, but I see that African's are the most affected people.

If you are living in the poor country then you can understand more because you are facing bad conditions of your country. People are poor and they have nothing to eat because government is not controling the country in good way and if government will be sincere with the public then there will be development in the country. They are rich  minerals and countries can buy at high price if they will make their defense system strong. Every dictator want their resources and they are not safe and that is reason they could not be rich at that time and if they have plan to be stand they can do that. They have to make their army strong. Nigeria has rich in crude oil and they have good resource and we saw Arab countries who are selling their resources at good price and they should learn from them.

[fillippone]

I would recommend you to read this book: Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.
It explains why the Europeans conquered North America and not vice versa, or why Europeans colonised Africa, and not the other way round, or why we once had very advanced civiliatio nwhere today nothing is left.
It gives a scientific framework.

[Miles2006]

WHAT THINGS ARE NEEDED TO TURN NATURAL RESOURCES INTO PROSPERITY IN YOUR POINT OF VIEW ?

Firstly, the government is responsible for whatever outcome either good or bad the government are likely the reason for everything probably if not all yet an average percentage.
As mentioned above corruption, mono economy policy etc are the major factors why resource countries aren’t doing well. “How can we turn the benefit of natural resource into prosperity” is another complex question, it’s all about a cooperative team as mentioned everything first starts with the government so in order to achieve a better result first this includes a change of government, this is not just what needs to be done hell no rather also make good use of the capital either for development etc, mainly the development of a country depends entirely on the government.

[STT]

Most countries have resources of one kind or another, famously riches have been found in guano which is just bird **** and very good for crop fertilizer.    You have to gain more then you exchange and lose by selling your resources, its the culmative iteration of trade that truely builds wealth.

  Then second I would say the very well known saying, "A country only grows rich while old men plant trees under whose shade they will never benefit from" . So again its about accumulation of wealth and a gearing gained to society by giving the youth of that country the greatest benefit and timeline by which to build.

  If that process is repeated then a country becomes great and capable, if we just burn the wealth for a quick gain today we've gone backwards.  You have in effect benefitted those you traded with more then your own nation, now and in the future.

[Joeboy]

Everything still falls on the government...Surely ,I have heard of how citizen goes to steal their own natural resources just so they can sell and have their next meal, but the question here is that if the government actually provided a better living conditions for the citizens, then they wouldn't have to start stealing their own resources.. Also the government sometime don't even make effectively use of the wealth that they generate from the natural resources, instead they prefers to go ahead to satisfy their personal gain with the money..And if that continues, it may be very difficult for such a country to ever move forward..