Botchway, Francis N. --- "Introduction" [2011] ELECD 401; in Botchway, N. Francis (ed), "Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Natural Resource Investment and Africa’s Development

Editor(s): Botchway, N. Francis

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446793

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Botchway, Francis N.

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

Introduction
Francis N. Botchway

Africa has been the object of significant attention from important players
in the natural resource business. As far back as the tenth century, Arab
and African traders traded in gold and other resources.1 This attracted
European countries to the sources of these important trade items. On
establishing that present-day Ghana was one of the main sources of
gold production and trade, the Portuguese named the place da mina.2
This was later changed to the Gold Coast by the British. Dutch, French,
Scandinavian, German and other explorers followed on to the shores of
South Africa, East and West Africa and elsewhere.3 Following periods of
lull, interest in African resources heightened by the close of the nineteenth
century. For example, from 1884 to 1901, more than 400 companies were
listed on the London Stock Exchange to mine gold in the then Gold
Coast.4 Foreign discoveries of diamond and other mineral resources in
countries such as Botswana, Tanzania and Sierra Leone were much more
recent, mainly in the post-Second World War period. The same can be
said of the discovery and exploitation of fossil fuel resources. Shell d'Arcy
discovered oil in commercial quantities in Nigeria in 1956. Oil was first dis-
covered in Angola in 1955, but 1966 is seen as the watershed of Angola's
oil endowment with the discovery of the massive Cabinda reserves.5
In the last two decades, there has been increased exploratory activity on
the African continent. ...