East Papua - New Guinea new Niger delta?

Oil spilled in the Niger delta

The New York Times reports:

In 2014, ExxonMobil is scheduled to start shipping natural gas through a pipeline of 450 miles, and then to the Japan, China and other markets in Southeast Asia. But revenues, flooding that is expected to Papua New Guinea 30 billion dollars more than three decades and more double bran produces domestic gross, will force a country already beset by the State of corruption and plagued by tenure complex dealing with the kind of outstanding deducted paradoxically other poor, rich resources into deeper poverty.

Will be South of Papua New Guinea highlands exploit these revenues to grow economically and reduce poverty, joining natural resources like the Chile and Botswana success stories? or rather follow in the path of Nigeria's Niger Delta, where frustration lost livelihoods and environmental devastation rockets of abductions, oil theft and sabotage?Or the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, a World Bank project failed became a cautionary against tale invest in extractive industries in a weak institutional environment?

?The article does not provide a cause for optimism:

While the richest Western societies are used for natural resources in the corners of the world's poorest, few places on Earth seems poorly prepared as Southern Highlands Papua New Guinea to rub shoulders with ExxonMobil.La poorest in one of the countries of the world's poorest region there still unexplored by people from the West to the OLA

…[L] es leaders concerned about the continuous influx of guns in an area with almost no presence of Government and no paved roads, electricity, running water, banks and post offices.They fear that the benefits of the gas project fall expectations, creating a generation of young men who form their anger on ExxonMobil.

PNG, Finance Minister explained that gas revenues will be invested in sovereign wealth funds, a strategy advocated by the OECD and used by Norway and Abu Dhabi to keep their oil revenues for smooth future volatility and protect against Dutch syndrome.

If there is a model for a country that could beat opportunities and overcome the resource curse, it might look something like this: the independent judiciary démocratie.Un institutions.Fonctionnement and a libre.Une homogeneous démographique.Une diverse economy plan with some strong and district society resources press fight to protect themselves against the distortion of the resource.

Unfortunately, this is not PNG.La nation largely rural, wonderfully diverse island is home to hundreds of different ethnic groups and one-tenth of the world's languages is dealing with a weak, ineffective Government and corrompu.Comparant perceptions of corruption, the ease of doing business and of the measures of freedom, Papua New Guinea ranks much closer in Chad and Nigeria in Botswana and the Chile.

A few photos on slideshow accompanying emphasis of the NYT on the challenges of development in PNG, while they evoke the beauty that is at stake.

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Photo credit

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