Gold Mining in Ghana

Book excerpt: Mineral-rich-post-independent African countries rely on their extractive industries for economic growth and development. The extraction of these resources generates more curses than blessings raising questions whether the sector provides an appropriate vehicle for economic growth. To balance the growing gap between the curses and blessings, regional policy makers and international counterparts have engaged in large-scale reforms of the mining sector. This has led to establishment of spaces of exclusion and further marginalization as new actors introduced into the sector interact one with the other to pursue and protect their interests. The gap between the curses and blessings of mining continues to widen, largely as an outcome of institutional and actor interaction within a politicized environment.