• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Celeste Hicks and Laura Seay, Monkey Cage

    Governance, Gender, and No Guarantees in Africa’s Oil-Rich States

    June 23, 2015 By Wilson Center Staff
    oil-line

    The original version of this article, by Celeste Hicks and Laura Seay, appeared on The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog.

    The discovery of oil in Chad in 1969 did not yield many immediate benefits for a population that would soon be wracked by civil war, but hopes were high by the late 1990s. Chad had largely stabilized, and a new, World Bank-backed project to build a pipeline through Cameroon to the Atlantic Ocean coast was touted as a model for socially and environmentally responsible oil exploitation in developing countries. Oil began flowing through the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline in 2003, but 12 years later, it is clear that the plan was largely a failure. Far from using oil revenues to benefit civilians by building and maintaining better public services, corruption and mismanagement plagued the project, leaving already-wealthy public officials as the biggest beneficiaries of a very expensive international development plan. Chad, meanwhile, seems to be just another case study in a long list of the resource-cursed weak countries in which leaders rely on natural-resource revenues to stay in power, thus avoiding creating the kinds of democratic, accountable institutions needed to strengthen the state and stop corruption.

    Are Chad and other oil-rich African states like Nigeria or Equatorial Guinea really “resource-cursed?” Are democratic political institutions doomed if oil is discovered in a weak state? Will women ever play an equal role in Africa’s oil industries? Freelance journalist Celeste Hicks explores Chad’s oil exploitation efforts and the broader phenomenon of post-Cold War oil exploration in Africa in her new book, Africa’s New Oil: Power, Pipelines, and Future Fortunes. We chat about what she learned in the following Q&A:

    Laura Seay: Chad is considered by many Western policymakers to be a bit of a backwater; it’s difficult to access and, outside of its oil, doesn’t have many natural resources. What got you interested in Chad and the oil question there? Are international policymakers right to pay little attention to the country?

    Celeste Hicks: My fascination with Chad began when I was sent there as BBC correspondent in 2008, just a few months after a very serious rebel attack which had come within hours of unseating the president. It was beyond eye-opening to see how a place like Chad – one of the world’s poorest countries – was run during a time of crisis. Slowly I began to realize that almost everything that happens in Chad is influenced by the exploitation of the country’s significant oil deposits.

    Continue reading on the Monkey Cage.

    Sources: The Washington Post.

    Photo Credit: Maintenance is performed on a fiber optic cable accompanying a buried oil pipeline from Kome, Chad, to Cameroon, courtesy of flickr user Ken Doerr.

    Topics: Africa, Cameroon, Chad, China, conflict, development, economics, environment, environmental security, gender, minerals, natural resources, oil, security, World Bank

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Rainforest destruction. Gold mining place in Guyana China’s Growing Environmental Footprint in the Caribbean
    ZingaZingaZingazoomzoom: US cleans up. China runs wild on free rein- A lack of international compliance mechanisms to hold...
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous souhaitons que le partenaire nous apporte son soutien technique et financier.
  • shutterstock_1858965709 Break the Bias: Breaking Barriers to Women’s Global Health Leadership
    Sarah Ngela Ngasi: Nous sommes une organisation féminine dénommée: Actions Communautaires pour le Développement de...

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000