Descrizione
Briefing by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), on on Natural resources governance: the foundation of peace, security and prosperity.
Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, “surging global demand for critical minerals should represent a once-in-a-generation chance for Africa and other resource-rich developing geographies – to harness new wealth, to accelerate industrial development, and to lift the living standards of millions.”
“These opportunities should become the foundation for peace and prosperity, not conflict and poverty,” Okonjo-Iweala added.
She also said, “mineral wealth is not inherently a blessing or a curse. It is a powerful catalyst of incentives – for governments, firms, local communities, and foreign powers alike.”
The WTO chief continued, “whether those incentives lead to prosperity or conflict, to effective states or failed ones, to global cooperation or geopolitical fragmentation, depends on the domestic and international policies and institutions that shape them.”
Okonjo-Iweala stressed, “our task is to change the incentives. We need to fundamentally change the way that resource-rich developing countries generate growth and share wealth. We need to see mineral wealth, not just as a resource to be extracted and shipped abroad, but as a catalyst for economic transformation.”
“Despite this difficult moment for multilateralism, there is a real opportunity to advance socioeconomic development, build resilience and stability, and create a more diversified, inclusive, and win-win global economy,” she added.
The Director-General emphasized, “the minerals beneath Africa or any developing region's soil should never have to finance the conflicts above it. Resource curse is not destiny. Incentives can be rewritten. Extraction or transformation, secrecy or transparency, fragmentation or rules-based cooperation? Our choices – your choices – will matter.”