Conflict over resource extraction is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa, with small-scale miners violently pitted against multinational mining corporations — and the state security forces that protect them — for access. Attempts to solve the problem by imposing Western environmental systems and regulations aren’t working. But it’s not for the reasons most experts might suspect, according to a new study.

«My research really pushes back against the idea that African regulators are corrupt or inept. They’re actually implementing global governance standards exactly the way they should. And that’s what’s having the negative impact,» says McKenzie Johnson, assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, and author of the World Development study.

Johnson says resource conflicts in industrializing countries were historically seen by the international environmental community as the result of inadequate or dysfunctional environmental governance or regulation. There was a push, beginning in the 1970s, to build local «green governance» systems, modeled after the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. and similar entities in Europe.

However, it quickly became clear that simply plunking down Western green governance systems in these contexts wasn’t working. Johnson explains.

«The international community recognized there are big cultural differences between western and African societies. Researchers argued that we could bridge the divide by building the capacity of domestic governance officials to translate global institutions so they make sense in a local context.

«What’s actually happening is these domestic-level ‘translators’ have become part of this global system of governance. They go to all the meetings, work with organizations like the World Bank, and essentially become part of that architecture. Through this socialization process, they come to perceive Western systems are the correct way to govern natural resources and environment,» she says. «So there is, in fact, no translation.»

This means that environmental regulation is applied as is without considering the extent to which domestic producers can cope with the new rules.

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. Original written by Lauren Quinn. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.