Countries with non-renewable natural resource wealth face special opportunities and special challenges. If used well, these resources can create greater prosperity for current and future generations; if used poorly, they can cause economic instability, social conflict and lasting environmental damage. The purpose of the Resource Charter is to assist the governments and societies of countries rich in non-renewable resources to manage those resources in a way that generates economic growth, promotes the welfare of the population in general and is environmentally sustainable.

The authors believe that the exploitation of natural resources should be carried out to help a country meet its broader social and economic goals, not as an end in itself. This means having a vision of how the resource sector fits in a country’s economic future. For some countries, the best use of resource endowments may be to leave it in the ground for future use; for others, it may be to extract rapidly to generate revenues to sustain the investment necessary for growth and to meet urgent human needs. Whatever a country’s ultimate development goals, we believe there are certain practical guidelines that can help it maximize the opportunities provided by resource wealth for social and economic development.

The Charter is directed primarily at policy makers in resource-rich countries. These are not the only important actors: international companies, intergovernmental organizations, civil society groups, and the governments of resource-importing states all have roles which affect the ability of societies to harness their endowments. Still, the most important decisions rest with the governments of resource-rich countries themselves, since they have both the sovereign right, and the moral responsibility, to use the country’s natural wealth for the benefit of their people. Nonetheless, resource companies and their home governments play a critical role in supporting or weakening effective policy; thus, while not the primary audience for the Charter, their role vis-à-vis producing countries is addressed.

Turning natural resource wealth into sustainable development is not simple. Countries must decide whether or not to extract their resources, and if so, how quickly; whether to use national companies, or rely on the private sector; how to design laws, regulations, and contracts that can produce the greatest benefits for the country; how to avoid or mitigate the environmental and social costs of extraction; how to handle the economic volatility caused by fluctuating international markets; and how to use the revenues that accrue to the government to produce lasting benefits for the population.

Each of these choices have far-reaching consequences, and can shape a nation’s development path for generations. Yet governments must make these decisions through a veil of uncertainty – uncertainty about the future value of the nation’s resources, about the environmental and social consequences of extraction, and about the government’s capacity to manage its new responsibilities. This Charter can help governments and citizens understand these decisions, so they can choose the path that best meets their needs. While the choices made by the governments of resource-rich countries are inevitably central to whether opportunities are harnessed for development, what other governments do can either undermine or reinforce these opportunities. Hence, we include proposals for how other countries can best be supportive.

The Charter has been written by an independent group of economists, lawyers, and political scientists. We do not represent any institution or special interest. We share the belief that natural resource wealth can be a powerful tool for social and economic advancement, but only if countries are able to meet some special challenges. We try to offer advice that is useful, clearly expressed, and perhaps non-obvious.

The Charter is organized around twelve Precepts that offer guidance on core decisions that governments face – beginning with the decision to extract the resources, and ending with decisions about using the revenues they ultimately generate. To make this Charter easy to use, we provide four levels of detail about each of the Precepts. The first level briefly states the twelve Precepts, while the second level provides a more complete explanation of the issues that governments must confront, and the solutions we offer. The third level contains a more technical discussion of the underlying issues, and the fourth level is made up of supporting literature.