Germany and Global Governance of Natural Resources in Africa

Decades of implementation of global environmental and development discourses in Africa have not brought any substantial changes in the development of African countries and to environmental conservation in Africa. Natural resources management in Africa has become a matter of ideology coupled with several paradoxes in the implementation of conservative or sustainable natural resources management. The environmental management strategies decided at the international level were mostly introduced into national environmental policies but could not realize the expected results. Forest exploitation is dominated by multinational firms which exploit the forest regardless to its different significance for the local population which continue to be at the margins of this activity. The participative measures so acclaimed during the international summits have in fact shown their informative, rather than participatory character; as the conception of several projects and programs are claimed to be participative while the target groups are only informed of the realization of those projects by national and international agencies.