Countries with non-renewable resource wealth face both an opportunity and a challenge. When used well, these resources can create greater prosperity for current and future generations; used poorly, or squandered, they can cause economic instability, social conflict, and lasting environmental damage.

The Natural Resource Charter offers policy options and practical advice for governments, societies and the international community on how best to manage resource wealth. Such guidance can ensure that resource-rich countries are not alone in facing these challenges, but rather that they can draw on accumulated experience to learn from history and avoid the mistakes of the past. The charter is not a precise prescription, but instead explores approaches that successful countries have used, in different contexts and combinations, to realize the development potential of natural resource wealth.

For countries to benefit from resource wealth, citizens and their governments must make a broad range of decisions. Each decision requires governments to consider complex options and trade-offs and devise strategies to implement these policy choices. To help governments make decisions, the charter contains 12 precepts. The first 10 precepts elaborate guidance on how a country and its government might manage natural resources. The last two precepts speak to international actors—extractive companies and those responsible for international governance. The charter includes all 12 precepts because transforming extractive wealth into sustained prosperity involves the government making and implementing a chain of good policy decisions with support and oversight from citizens and the international community.

All the links in this chain need to be strong if a country is to truly benefit from extracted resource wealth.