The US and Ukraine have finally ratified their mineral deal. According to the agreement, Washington will eventually get a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Russian natural resources, giving it a competitive edge over the country’s investment in defense and reconstruction.
According to US Secretary of State Scott Bessant, the agreement demonstrates the government’s dedication to peace in Ukraine.
On the surface, the offer has little unexpected about it. The World Bank, the UN, and the mining sector have all supported the idea that biological resource extraction may contribute to promoting peace for a while.
What is amazing is how the discussion of mine and peace has evolved. Instead of the” who gets what” implication that this deal has, it used to be about boosting growth in war-torn nations.
The perception that mining can aid in peace came about somewhat paradoxically as a result of the evidence that natural resources can help to stifle conflict in places like Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC ). The idea is that miners can also promote development and, consequently, harmony if it is properly managed.
A plant can help countries emerge from the economic, environmental, and social chaos that a battle brings when local communities are consulted, revenues are shared pretty, harms are minimized, and there is clarity and responsibilities.
In actuality, things are more complicated. The idea that mine can bring about positive change is undermined by the same top-down, externally-driven approach to creating peace as the organization’s wider counterterrorism framework. It doesn’t always take in consideration regional aspirations and realities into account.
However, over the past 20 years, UN agencies have paid a lot of interest to natural resources in conflict-affected places. For instance, the UN Environmental Programme ( UNEP ) launched an initiative in 2008 to learn about the risks and benefits posed by high-value natural resources.
It created mining-related laws and practices that were intended to be a part of the UN’s peace and security framework. These included recommendations for UN workers in resource-rich post-conflict nations.
UNEP pointed to Sierra Leone’s considerable risk to the mine industry’s sustainability as a result of the Environmental Protection Agency’s inability to monitor and enforce compliance.
As the industry expanded following the end of the civil war in 2002, the company was overwhelmed by the number of economic impact assessments that had been submitted for evaluation.
The UN established a focused project to increase power in Sierra Leone to address this. According to the project team, the process of assessing economic impact itself provided a forum for discussion and building trust between the parties involved.
Around the same time, a number of initiatives were created for the industrial industry to promote responsible mining. The UN-mandated accreditation program known as the Kimberley Process was one of them. Since its inception in 2003, Sierra Leone has a membership.
In 2003, the Oslo-based EITI, a group of state, industry, and civil society members, was established. Through the monitoring of revenues and payments, it aims to promote good governance in the oil, gas, and metal extraction.
The definition of good leadership has been expanded to include encouraging women’s participation and the release of information about a mine’s economic effects. The EITI Standard is currently being implemented in over 50 nations.
Criticism can be leveled at for all of these activities and techniques. The point is that, at least to some extent, natural resources in conflict areas have been viewed as places for dialogue and speech for some time.
Lowering the bar
The underdeveloped organic sources of Ukraine have evolved into a site for a conflict-ridden back-and-forth over their power. And it’s not just present in Ukraine. Now seizing resource-rich territory in the east, Rwandan-backed rebels are reportedly considering signing a minerals-for-security deal with the US in the DRC.
In terms of mine and peace, the bar appears to have significantly decreased. Steel and metal deposits in war-torn nations, like the brass beneath Afghanistan, promised a more positive coming in the era of the democratic peace job, albeit with prudence. That enthusiasm now seems lost.
This is because the Taliban have since retaken power of Afghanistan. Making the most of the nation’s material prosperity is being rapidly exploited. However, it is said that mine is being bypassed in terms of the technical, financial, and climate checks. Any revenues may not be able to provide the people in the desired approach, according to some people.
It’s anything entirely different in Ukraine. The mineral deposits that are being used to support political ambitions that are representative of the risky, transactional, and exceedingly extractive world we currently appear to live in. In particular, the Russian mineral deposits are bringing a Trumpian, authoritarian version of peace to living.
The function of mine, the acquisition of territory, the expulsion of residents from particular locations, and the top-down change of other people’s place result in a harmony.
This has already been demonstrated in Trump’s desire for the US to conquer the Gaza Strip, which prompted Antonio Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, to inform against ethnic cleansing.
I have previously addressed the issue of organic resource-related peace. This issue is the same regardless of whether liberal or authoritarian: geographical sources cannot be renewed.
There is a striking dilemma around. These sources didn’t do anything for us continuously. And if we believe they can, we are heading for even more problems.
Expecting a rebellious Trump presidency or a struggling Ukrainian leadership to consider this is over the top. However, the horror of the day’s recent efforts to build peace is there. They are focused on the here-and-now in the hope that the social, economic, ecological, and geographical coming did take care of itself.
However, it didn’t, however.
Bridget Storrie is a training assistant at UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity.
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