Mexico

Resource extraction as a development pathway: Economic and social policies for poverty reduction and rural development

Poverty, in its various dimensions, has always been and remains at the centre of the development problematic. The aim and most general objective of the research network and team set up by the applicant and the collaborator is to examine this poverty-development problematic in the context of Zacatecas (Mexico), a state that over the years has experienced the most dramatic rate of rural outmigration in all of Mexico, but that is now looking to the industry of natural resource extraction (gold and silver mining) as a development pathway out of poverty for the rural population. The purpose of this examination and associated research is to generate better and more knowledge about the policy dynamics of two alternative development pathways out of poverty-migration and natural resource extraction (mining). In the absence of perceived alternatives outmigration has been the traditional response to the widespread and deepening crisis in agricultural production that has afflicted the state.

But this response is not a solution to the crisis and the endemic poverty associated with it, in that migration robs the economy of its most productive members; and despite ideas and arguments to the contrary, the remittances of the income earned by these migrant workers also do not constitute a development pathway out of poverty. A more promising pathway, we suggest, is constituted by a recent revival of a traditional industry based on an abundant supply of silver, gold and other strategic minerals. Traditionally, a national or local development strategy based on natural resource extraction has been subject to what economists have described as a ‘resource curse’, which is that the benefits of the extracted wealth of natural resources has tended to disproportionately benefit foreign investors and the mining companies at the expense of local communities and the country as a whole; indeed, more often than not natural resource or mineral extraction has had few development spread effects, with the economic, with social and environmental costs far exceeding its benefits for the owners of the wealth.

However, there are reasons to believe that conditions today have significantly improved and that under the new regulatory regime adopted by many resource-rich commodity exporting countries, the development potential of mining and natural resource extraction could be very positive both for the local rural communities and the country as a whole. Indeed, this is the rationale behind the Canadian government’s recent announcement of its decision to launch development projects in partnership with mining firms. It is also the rationale of our proposal to examine the policy dynamics and development implications of Canadian mining in Zacatecas, and to do on the basis of collaborative research and an academic alliance between two universities that share a commitment to the search for development pathways out of rural poverty and the design of appropriate public policy-policies for sustainable development.