Many low and middle-income mineral-richcountries have experienced strong growth for a decade orlonger, propelled by a rapid expansion of their mineralexports and a rise in prices of these commodities. Thissustained strong economic performance goes against theaccepted wisdom that even though the mining sector, likeother extractive industries, can generate foreign exchangeand fiscal revenues, it contributes little to sustainedeconomic growth and, by extension, human development.Through the presentation of trends and patterns of variousindicators, this paper shows that in addition to economicgrowth, countries rich in minerals other than oil haveexperienced significant improvements in their humandevelopment index (HDI) scores that are on average betterthan those experienced by countries without minerals. In asample of five low and middle-income countries withrelatively long histories of mining, benefits came fromforeign direct investment (FDI), export revenues, and fiscalrevenues. The overall impact of the mining sector was muchstronger if there were infrastructure benefits and stronglinkages to other industries, especially through domesticprocurement. Contrary to the notion that there are no jobsin mining, in this small sample, employment related to themining sector was very high in countries where linkages werestrong, even before the multiplier and fiscal expenditureimpacts were accounted for. Cooperation between the publicand private sectors seemed essential to increasing suchlinkages. In addition, mining firms often made substantialcontributions to local and regional development, at timesdue to legal requirements but often not. All five countrieshave either relatively high HDIs (compared with neighboringcountries) or strongly improving HDIs.
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