Enclaves, legacies and prospects for sustained development in mineral-rich Africa

Why has economic development and prosperity proved so elusive in resource-rich sections of Africa? For over four decades, the International Finance Institutions (IFIs) have promoted export-led resource extraction as a catalyst for economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries. But in Africa, the reforms ushered in by the IFIs, despite facilitating unprecedented increases in mineral and oil production, have, simultaneously, failed to jumpstart local development and industrialization, diversify economies, and create employment, as promised. Several ideas have been put forward by scholars as explanations for this paradox, which is popularly referred to as the “resource curse”, an exhaustive list that includes the “Dutch Disease”, weak institutions and consequent poor management of revenues. One overarching idea that warrants further investigation as a potential explanation for this paradox, particularly in areas of Africa where foreign-financed large-scale mineral exploration and extraction are highly concentrated, is resource enclavity. While rarely advanced as an explanation in this context, the concept of resource enclavity, and allied terms such as “enclaves” and “enclave development”, has been used metaphorically (and euphemistically) across the social sciences to describe yet another paradox: the tendency of localized pockets of “booming” mineral production – in this case, those in Africa – to function in isolation, without forging linkages with other industries and other areas of a country’s economy. Today, mineral-rich Africa appears locked into a development path which, thus far, has caused it to become increasingly reliant, economically, on export-oriented, foreign-financed enclaves that facilitate minimal change locally. In a bid to reverse this trend and combat entrenched enclavity more broadly, many of the continent’s governments have, in recent years, implemented local content: a mixture of policies aimed explicitly at fostering economic linkages through nurturing local skill-bases and industries. Using local content as a point of departure, this thesis aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of resource enclavity in mineral-rich Africa and reflect critically on attempts made to transform capital-intensive large-scale mining, through local content, into an economic development engine. The thesis advances debates on the resource curse, enclavity and local economic development in mineral-rich Africa by emphasizing historical context.

Department dc:contributor.department

Political Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Patricia, Ackah-Baidoo

Advisor dc:contributor.supervisor

• Grant, Andrew

• Resource enclavity
• Mineral-rich Africa
• Development
• Resource Curse
• Local Content

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1974/36345

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:queensu.scholaris.ca:1974/36345