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Oil in Chad and Equatorial Guinea: Widening the Focus of the Resource Curse

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Abstract

The exploration and extraction of oil in the territorial sea of Equatorial Guinea and Chad’s southern region of Doba have led to certain socio-economic and political dynamics among their populations. The literature developed around the concept of ‘resource curse’ is helpful in understanding how oil stimulates the governments’ rentier behaviour and authoritarianism, as well as the countries’ poverty and inequality. However, not all the similarities between the cases are explained by these approaches and some of the differences are relevant to understand the specific configuration of the curse in these countries. Only by taking into account historical trajectories, the particular strategies of local and non-local actors, and the international political economy in which oil is extracted and commercialised, can we properly analyse all these dynamics in their complexity.

Abstract

L'exploration et l'extraction du pétrole dans la mer territoriale de la Guinée équatoriale ainsi que dans la région de Doba au sud du Tchad ont donné naissance à certaines dynamiques socio-économiques et politiques au sein des populations de ces régions. La littérature qui s'est développée autour du concept de «malédiction des ressources» permet de mieux comprendre comment le pétrole renforce d’une part le comportement rentier et l'autoritarisme des gouvernements en question et d’autre part la pauvreté et les inégalités dans ces pays. Cependant, ces approches ne peuvent expliquer toutes les similitudes de cas, et certaines des différences aident à comprendre les rouages de la malédiction spécifiques à ces pays. Une analyse appropriée de ces dynamiques dans leur complexité exige de prendre en compte les trajectoires historiques, les stratégies particulières des acteurs locaux et non locaux, ainsi que le contexte économique et politique international dans lequel le pétrole est produit et commercialisé.

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Notes

  1. Since Sachs and Warner (1995), a prolific literature has developed this line of research (Brunnschweiler and Bulte, 2008; Wick and Bulte, 2009), including sophisticated econometric approaches in many cases, such as World Bank (2002) and Ross (2001, 2009). A case for regional and comparative studies is made in Basedau (2005). Some regional studies are available such as Gary and Karl (2003) and Soares de Oliveira (2007). A specific comparative study on the effects of oil in Chad and Sudan is made in Behrends (2008).

  2. See, for example, McSherry (2006), Gould and Winters (2011), Gary and Karl (2003) and Yates (2012).

  3. This surprising feature can be explained because the GNI per capita is very high (17 608 international $ in PPP) due to a huge inflow oil rent coupled with a small population.

  4. Among the main political parties of the opposition, we find the social-democrat Convergencia Para la Democracia Social, the more liberal right-wing Unión Popular and Alianza Popular de Guinea Ecuatorial and the Frente Democrático Republicano, whose social bases are found in the same area as the Nguema family (Mongomo). Now in exile, there are also the Partido del Progreso; and the Movimiento de Autodeterminación de la Isla de Bioko, which defends a secessionist project for the island.

  5. Some scholars have considered that during the 1980s Chad was a virtual failed state (Azevedo, 1998; Buijtenhuijs, 1998).

  6. In February 2008, at the time of the most serious attack on N’Djamena, three groups comprised this alliance: the Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement (UFDD), lead by Mahamat Nouri, an ancient Déby minister; the Rassemblement des Forces pour le Changement, led by Timan Erdimi; and the UFDD-Fondamentale, constituted by a group of former members of the UFDD, led by Abdelwahid Aboud Mackaye, as well a former collaborator of Deby. From that moment on, rebellion faded because of the co-optation politics of Déby, and the cited huge increase of military power of the Chadian army financed by the oil rent. At the end of 2008, a new alliance was set up, the Union des Forces pour la Résistance (UFR), with material support from the Sudanese government. However, the peace agreement between Sudan and Chad in January 2010 has undermined the UFR, and currently they have no real probability of defeating Déby militarily (Hansen, 2011; HSBA, 2011).

  7. Authors who pay particular attention to oil companies in Equatorial Guinea and Chad are Ghazvinian (2007) and Harel (2006).

  8. For a broader background of the oil project in Chad, see Gary and Reisch (2004), International Crisis Group (2009) and Colom (2010, 2012).

  9. However, transnational NGOs, media and even judicial and legislatives bodies such as those in United States, France or Spain have tried to scrutinise the agreements between government and oil companies and the destination of oil rents (US Senate, 2004; Global Witness, 2004, 2009; Human Rights Watch, 2009; Amnesty International, 2009; EG Justice, 2012; Silverstein, 2012).

  10. The deplorable human rights record of that time is in part the responsibility of the Direction de la Documentation et de la Securité, a unit that had US support (Amnesty International, 2001; Reyna, 2011, p. 144).

  11. The reasons behind Elf’s decision remain unclear. The official explanation offered by Elf stated that the profitability of the project was dubious. Other sources say that since Elf at that time was under investigation for corrupt practices in France, the company intended to avoid further scandal by not getting involved in a project with such a complex setting. This last reason explains why Shell also left the project (Reyna, 2011, p. 145).

  12. 80 per cent of this had to be allocated to the sectors considered poverty reducing, the so-called priority sectors (health, social affairs, education, infrastructures, rural development, environment and water resources), 15 per cent to the functioning of the government and 5 per cent to the oil region (Logone Oriental).

  13. The Loi also established a body to control spending, the Collège de Contrôle et Surveillance des Ressources Pétrolières. This body’s purpose was the management of the revenues allocated to the priority sectors. Members of the Collège were appointed by the government, as well as by civil society through previously designed NGOs (Gould and Winters, 2007; Kojucharov, 2007). To complete the institutional setting, the first PRSP was finally approved in 2004 within the framework of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative promoted by the WB and IMF. A second PRSP was launched in 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Artur Colom-Jaén

  2. Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK

    Artur Colom-Jaén

  3. Department of Social Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Alicia Campos-Serrano

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Colom-Jaén, A., Campos-Serrano, A. Oil in Chad and Equatorial Guinea: Widening the Focus of the Resource Curse. Eur J Dev Res 25, 584–599 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2013.25

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