A Win-Win for Europe & Africa: Extractive Justice and Resource Interdependency

The document examines the inequitable resource interdependency between Europe and Africa, where Africa provides critical minerals and energy resources but does not benefit fully from the resulting wealth. It argues that current EU directives and African initiatives are insufficient to address illicit tax outflows and governance deficits. The authors propose the adoption of 'extractive justice'—comprising distributive, recognitional, and procedural justice—to create a symbiotic relationship and reduce resource-related conflicts.

• The trade relationship between Europe and Africa in the extractive sector is characterized by an inequitable resource interdependency where Europe holds the dominant position in wealth accumulation.
• Africa is a critical supplier of global resources; for example, in 2012, African sources supplied approximately 25% of Europe's oil demand, and the continent meets most of the global demand for rare earth metals, uranium, phosphate, and cobalt.
• Existing EU policy tools, specifically the Accounting and Transparency Directives, have made progress against corruption but have not addressed the illicit outflow of royalties and tax revenue.
• The EU Raw Materials Initiative (RMI) and the Joint Africa–EU Strategy (JAES) are criticized as superficial because they have not corrected the unbalanced relationship between the two regions.
• The African Mining and Development Centre (AMDC), which coordinates the Africa Mining Vision (AMV), is hindered by governance deficits and knowledge gaps that contribute to wealth inequality in the mining sector.
• Resource-related conflicts, which have increased over the last 15 years and cost mining companies millions of dollars, are driven by inadequate community participation and poorly designed mineral development strategies.
• The authors propose 'extractive justice' as a framework to resolve conflicts and imbalances, consisting of distributive justice (sharing benefits), recognitional justice (recognizing social groups' ways of life), and procedural justice (impartial decision-making processes).

APA

MOSTERT, H., YOUNG, C., HASSMAN, J., & UKABHAI, P. (2019). A Win-Win for Europe & Africa: Extractive Justice and Resource Interdependency. South African Institute of International Affairs. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Policy-Briefing-183-mostert-et-al.pdf

Chicago

MOSTERT, HANRI, CHERI YOUNG, JULIE HASSMAN, and PRIYANKA UKABHAI. A Win-Win for Europe & Africa: Extractive Justice and Resource Interdependency. South African Institute of International Affairs, 2019. https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Policy-Briefing-183-mostert-et-al.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=MOSTERT |first1=HANRI |last2=YOUNG |first2=CHERI |last3=HASSMAN |first3=JULIE |last4=UKABHAI |first4=PRIYANKA |title=A Win-Win for Europe & Africa: Extractive Justice and Resource Interdependency |publisher=South African Institute of International Affairs |date=May 2019 |url=https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Policy-Briefing-183-mostert-et-al.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{mostert2019winwin, author = {MOSTERT, HANRI and YOUNG, CHERI and HASSMAN, JULIE and UKABHAI, PRIYANKA}, title = {{A Win-Win for Europe \& Africa: Extractive Justice and Resource Interdependency}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2019}, month = may, url = {https://saiia.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Policy-Briefing-183-mostert-et-al.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }