If managed properly, natural resource exploration could be beneficial to communities where extractive activities take place, either directly through transfer of resource revenues and corporate interventions or through the promotion of local content. However, communities also bear the disproportionate costs of resource extraction from environmental hazard and other socio-economic effects. Effective resource management, therefore, involves maximizing benefits from resources while minimizing the costs imposed on the host communities. Nigeria currently performs below average in managing local impacts of resource extraction. Particularly, the Nigeria Natural Resource Charter (NNRC) conducted a robust assessment of the performance of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector against the 12 precepts of the Natural Resource Charter[1], detailing the relevant findings in their Benchmarking Exercise Report (BER) 2017[2]. Major issues relating to managing local impacts of extractive activities were captured in precept 5. This brief provides actionable policy recommendations that can enhance the management of local impacts of resource extraction, especially in response to the challenges identified in the BER 2017.

[1] The Natural Resource Charter is a set of principles on how to best harness the opportunities created by extractive resources for development for governments and societies rich in non-renewable natural resources.

[2] http://www.nigerianrc.org/2017-benchmark-report/

In most business schools and development economics classes around the world, Nigeria is used as a textbook case of “resource curse”. With more than USD 1 trillion earned from oil revenue since inception, the country is still ranked high in major underdevelopment indicators such as poverty, infant and maternal mortality among others. A comparative analysis of resource-rich countries, however, indicates that development outcomes hinge not strongly on the resource endowment per se, but crucially on effective management and governance of the resource.

Sustained political will among government and non-state actors in the policy space has been responsible for the recorded success at the federal level in the implementation of tobacco control policies. In addition, a few states have demonstrated substantial political will by enacting laws on the prohibition of smoking in public places. Given that majority of states are not politically motivated to adopt tobacco control measures, we seek to provide an understanding of what constitutes political will in Nigeria. In view of the concerns around the implementation of tobacco control policies, we also examine the factors that influence political will in order to leverage on positive forces and curb negative forces within the policy environment.