This project is a collaborative effort between PRIO and the Development Research Group (DECRG) and the Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Unit (CPR) of the World Bank over the 2002-2004 period. The project is financed by the Norwegian Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (NTFESSD).
The aim of the Governance of Natural Resources project will be to build a solid body of theoretical and applied research on the links between natural resources and conflict. Research conducted at PRIO will include the development of two databases (location data of armed conflicts and of natural resources), and the production of several empirical studies of the relationships between natural resources and conflict. The project will address the concern that an abundance of valuable (‘lootable’) natural resources is associated with lower economic growth and an increased risk of armed conflict, and investigate how natural resource characteristics affect the risk, type, location and duration of conflict. The project will also to some extent address the opposite perspective, that scarcity of renewable natural resources may be associated with armed conflict.
Project Output
Locations of Armed Conflicts Database. Based on Gleditsch, Nils Petter; Peter Wallensteen, Mikael Eriksson, Margareta Sollenberg & Håvard Strand, 2002. ‘Armed Conflict 1946–2001: A New Dataset’, Journal of Peace Research 39(5): 615–637.
