The Macroeconomic Policy Division (MPD) of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) will on 7th to 8th November, 2017 convene an ad-hoc meeting of experts to review the fifth edition of the African Governance Report (AGR V), on the theme: Natural Resources Governance and Domestic Resource Mobilization for Structural Transformation in Africa.

This Report is informed by the growing consensus around the fact that despite Africa's natural resource endowments, African countries have over the years not been able to harness their resource wealth to diversify their economies and to achieve structural transformation. Economic diversification and structural transformation have remained limited with productivity growth largely stagnant. This edition of AGR seeks to analyze the link between natural resource governance, domestic resource mobilization and Africa's structural transformation. Most conceptions and proposals for the good governance of natural resources that have shaped the continent's policy trajectories, have primarily focused on processes and mechanisms for optimizing revenue collection, management and utilization.

In light of Africa's current drive for structural transformation, AGR V contemplates an alternative conceptualization of natural resources governance, which not only addresses the optimization of revenue collection, management and utilization, but also speaks to broader economic transformation issues. The report also explores the role of development planning in resource-led economic transformation. In particular, AGR V identifies the challenges posed by the lack of comprehensive and effective development planning frameworks in many resource-rich African countries to the achievement of vital economic linkages, economic diversification and socio-economic transformation. In this regard and as the region embarks on the implementation Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda, strengthening development planning, particularly resource-based development planning, has become even more pertinent. It has the potential to bridge the longstanding disconnect between natural resource wealth and the lack of socio-economic transformation on the continent.

Using eight country case studies, the Report explores how planning as an instrument of governance, could support efforts for better resource management for domestic resource mobilization, economic diversification and ultimately structural transformation. The objective of this meeting, which brings together prominent experts, from within and outside the continent, is to carefully review the draft Report, discuss its findings and guide the articulation of relevant policy messages and recommendations that will meaningfully contribute in re-shaping Africa's resource governance landscape.