Explore the sustainable development opportunities and challenges in using oil, gas and minerals. Natural resources represent a potentially transformational opportunity to support development but are ultimately finite How do we make the most of them without destroying the planet? In this 12-week course, produced by the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the World Bank, learn about efforts to sustainably manage extractive industry investments.
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You will come to understand the complex and interwoven aspects of natural resource governance and become part of a global movement of citizens and practitioners committed to harnessing the transformational impacts of our natural resources.
This course is for:
- Sustainable development practitioners – as well as private-sector actors, such as those who work in corporate sustainability and responsibility or renewable energy – who need a historical context of the extractives industry and its evolution
- Extractive practitioners, such as those who work in oil, gas and mining, who are interested in making the field more sustainable
- Graduate students and advanced undergraduate students studying extractives, environmental science, environmental law, sustainable development, sustainable business and related fields
- Climate change activists or practitioners looking to understand the balance of sustainable resource use and business investment
What you'll learn
- How countries translate natural resource wealth into sustainable development outcomes
- How governance of extractive industries impact long term economic development
- The policies necessary for the sustainable management of natural resource wealth
- Why communication between government, industry, and citizens is critical to sustainable natural resource management
Syllabus
Module 1: Challenges and opportunities
- History of oil, gas, and mining
- Challenges& opportunities: oil, gas, and mining
- The decision chain of natural resource management (I)
- The decision chain of natural resource management (II)
Module 2: Political economy of natural resources
How natural resources shape and are shaped by political context
Corruption trends in the extractive sector
International governance
Natural resources& the broader governance framework
Transparency& accountability
Module 3: Fundamentals of oil, gas, and mining: industry considerations and policy
From oil well to car - market, players, and extraction process
From mine to mobile phone - market, players, and extraction process
How a company decides to invest
Project development
Evolving technology
Module 4: Legal overview
Legal& regulatory frameworks for extractive industries
Allocation of rights
Implementation& monitoring of legal frameworks
International law& the extractive industries
State-owned enterprises: Role and governance
Module 5: Fiscal regime design and revenue collection
Resource economics& fiscal regime principles
Fiscal instruments I: Royalty/tax systems
Fiscal instruments II: Contract-based systems
Fiscal regime implementation
Module 6: Anticipating and managing environmental issues
Environmental challenges and trends: oil and gas
Environmental challenges and trends: mining
Managing environmental challenges
Extractives and climate change
Environmental impact assessments
Module 7: Community rights
Social impact and engagement
Human rights and the mining industry
Mining and vulnerable populations
Company-community agreements
Module 8: Artisanal mining
Introduction to artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)
Challenges of ASM
ASM and gender
Tensions between ASM and large-scale mining
The way forward
Module 9: Revenue management
Challenges of revenue management
Policy responses: savings, spending, public debt, and earmarking
Natural resource funds
Revenue sharing and decentralization
Module 10: Investing in sustainable development: Economic linkages to the extractives sector
Introduction to economic linkages
Local employment
Local procurement
Enabling tech transfer
Downstream linkages
Module 11: Investing in sustainable development: Looking beyond extractives
Investing in investing
