Download the memorandum in PDF format 

The Heinrich Boell Foundation demands binding rules and regulations for a new, global resource policy

Less than a week before the G8-summit in Heiligendamm the Heinrich Boell Foundation, together. with the German Federal Minister Wieczorek-Zeul, launched its Memorandum "To Have and Have Not" concerning the world-wide challenges in the resource sector.

The memorandum, written by an international expert group, outlines the challenges of resource governance in the 21st Century, focusing on Africa where natural resource wealth has failed to create wealth for local populations, and in fact has resulted in increased corruption, human rights abuses and even violent conflict. The Memorandum describes the economic, social and ecological implications of resource exploitation and relates that to other challenges such as preventing dangerous climate change, improving investment conditions and promoting democracy. The Memorandum analyses initiatives, standards and mechanisms of current global resource-policy and makes specific political demands and recommendations to the G8 to provide a coherent response to these challenges. The impact of the increasing international competition for access to and control of natural recourses and the topic "Transparency in the natural resources sector" are also on the agenda of the official G8 summit.

The Memorandum of the Heinrich Boell Foundation is supported internationally by Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the US-investment banker and founder of the Open Society Institute George Soros, Ed Zwick, the director of the film "Blood Diamonds" and Peter Eigen, the founder of Transparency International and president of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).