Transparency and the new scramble for Africa's mineral resources

Until the rise of the Brazil, Indian and China in the last  decade, the natural resources of Africa were developed almost exclusively by the Europeans.  Both bilaterally and through multilateral treaties, the EU provided substantial aid to newly independent African countries to continue to supply  their natural resources to the European market. Under the Lome Convention, the EU provided  the now defunct Stabex facility which explicitly linked payments to developing countries to the price and quantities sold to Europe. This helped stabilise client states in the face of price declines and when passed on to producers, even occasionally helped farmers.

It also assured that African countries had even less incentive to ever process their exports of cocoa, for example, into higher value added products. A similar facility, called Sysmin helped African countries weather declines in their mining sector.